Count on it — Cameron Crowe will direct his self-written, Sony-financed comedy-adventure with Ben Stiller and Reese Witherspoon, which will roll early next year under producer Scott Rudin.

Ben Stiller, Cameron Crowe, Reese Witherspoon

Variety‘s Michael Fleming and Tatiana Siegel posted a story last night about Columbia’s Amy Pascal having beat out various bidders for a C.C.-authored “comedy adventure” project with Stiller and Witherspoon costarring and Rudin producing. Fleming/Siegel said the film, which will begin shooting in January ’09, is based on a Crowe script, and that Crowe will produce. But it didn’t say he’d be directing.
That seemed weird. Why wouldn’t the director of Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous want to take the reins on his latest creation? So I wrote and was told a few minutes ago by a Rudin spokesperson that Crowe will in fact be the helmer. Hooray — the post-Elizabethtown afterburn era is finally over (after two and a half years) and the Man Called C is again strapping on the leg irons, just like Gene Wilder‘s gunslinger did in Blazing Saddles.
Way back in April ’07 I wrote about the E-Town trauma and how the abysmal failure of that ’05 dramedy had affected Crowe’s rep around town.
I passed along a second-hand piece of information in that same story about Crowe having written a vehicle that he wanted Adam Sandler to be in — is this the same thing?