Jim Carrey is set to team up with Joel Schumacher again on an eccentric thriller. New Line has hired the pair, who last worked together on 1995's Batman Forever, to star in and direct The Number 23.
Carrey will play a man who becomes convinced that the book he is reading - in which the number 23 has an elusive significance - is very specifically about him. The trouble is, the book ends with a murder.
A script for the movie has been around for some time, and both Carrey and Schumacher have previously been attracted to the project. With convenient gaps in both of their schedules, plans have been re-floated and shooting is scheduled to begin in November.
It should be an interesting partnership - Schumacher reinvented the Batman formula with the big budget spectacular that was Batman Forever before coming to grief with Batman and Robin, but has since gone back to basics with small, tight films like Phone Booth and Veronica Guerin. And Carrey has on occasion abandoned his trademark gurning for welcome, for critics and film-goers, acting in gems such as The Truman Show and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
