Movie News

© AP/ Sacha Baron Cohen

The Hollywood Reporter

The very things that made James Bond cool -- the women, the tuxedo, the gadgets -- also made the concept ripe for spoofs and offshoots.

Jean Dujardin, the Oscar-winning actor from "The Artist," starred in the French-made "OSS 117" series, and Rowan Atkinson starred in a couple of Johnny English comedies. Even in the early days of the Bond movies, James Coburn ran around in the parodies "Our Man Flint" (1966) and "In Like Flint" (1967).

Find: Why did Sacha Baron Cohen apologize to Ryan Seacrest?

Now Paramount is jumping into the fray, acquiring a pitch from Sacha Baron Cohen and Phil Johnston for an untitled comedy project featuring a James Bond-like spy who "is forced to go on the run with his long-lost brother, a moronic soccer hooligan," according to the studio.

Cohen might take a role in the project, though that would depend on availability and scheduling.

Cohen has a first-look deal with Paramount and starred in this year's "The Dictator" for the studio.

Johnston wrote the Ed Helms comedy "Cedar Rapids" and worked on Disney's "Wreck-It-Ralph," which comes out this fall.