It's August and the blockbuster season is slowly but surely wrapping up, with pirates, sentient automobiles, transforming robots, jingoistic super soldiers, swinging mutants, sweaty musclemen, arrogant Norse deities, and British wizards all having had an opportunity to make obscene amounts of money from a populace just looking to spend a few hours in an air-conditioned dreamworld.  Hyper-intelligent apes, it turns out, are also a viable subject of big event movies, as the not-really-a-prequel Rise of the Planet of the Apes exceeded all expectations to bring in an estimated $54 million over the weekend.

On paper, it might seem easy to be the straight man in any comedy.  Just stand there and react to the funnier guy and in doing so, allow him to continue being funny.  A great straight man, however, can actually be far funnier than his more superficially amusing counterpart, shading a seemingly ordinary character with a more subtly comedic personality.  Nobody is better at the rare art of the straight man than our latest Rogue of the Week, Jason Bateman.

In this weekend's comedy The Change-Up, Bateman plays a married father who, due to a magical fountain in which they both urinate while making a drunken wish, switches bodies with a carefree lothario played by Ryan Reynolds.  The body-switch premise allows Bateman to display his perfect timing, first as the staid, more mature straight man and subsequently as the wild card forced to inhabit the former's life.  The comedic actor, who has been working thirty years, moves from one to the other without missing a beat.

The body-swap comedy is an age-old tradition in Hollywood that dates all the way back to the 1976 Walt Disney film Freaky Friday starring a young Jodi Foster. While that film featured a mother and daughter swapping bodies, since then we’ve seen many different versions of that idea including father and son (Vice Versa, Like Father Like Son), grandfather and grandson (18 Again), and even geek and goddess (The Hot Chick) switching lives. Now a new take on the classic comedic theme is about to hit theaters with The Change-Up, which opens on August 5^th and features two best friends (Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds) trading places in a hard R-Rated movie.

Directed by Wedding Crashers director David Dobkin, the film promises to push the hard R-rating, in a summer of R-rated comedies, and deliver an over-the-top body-swapping movie the likes of which has never been seen before. The film stars Bateman as Dave, a successful married lawyer with three young children, and Reynolds as his best friend Mitch, a part-time actor and full-time ladies man. The two friends have begun to drift apart due to their different lifestyles but after getting together for a night of drinking and catching up, the boys urinate into a “magical fountain” and make a wish to trade lives. The result: they both wake up in the other person’s body. Now, Dave and Mitch must literally step into each other’s shoes and keep up appearances until they can find a solution to their predicament.

IAR recently attended a press conference for the film, along with several other members of the press, and had a chance to speak with director David Dobkin, as well as the film’s stars Jason Bateman (Horrible Bosses), Ryan Reynolds (Green Lantern), and Olivia Wilde (Cowboys and Aliens).

The new bro-fantasy The Change-Up starring Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman follows the adult-adventures of childhood buddies Mitch and Dave. Dave (Bateman) is a hard working and successful lawyer, married with kids. Mitch (Reynolds), largely allergic to responsibility and commitment of any kind, keeps a rotating roster of hot women and a fluctuating level of employment. Both envy the other's seemingly perfect life. After a night out and an incident with a fountain, Mitch and Dave switch bodies overnight. With direction from David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers) and a script written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (The Hangover) audiences are expecting a slick, sick and raunchy adult comedy.

With The Hangover, screenwriting duo Jon Lucas and Scott Moore created the most successful comedy franchise of all time by taking a unique and clever approach the time-honored masculine cinematic tradition of the bachelor party gone awry.  For 21 and Over, their feature directorial debut, Lucas and Moore will take on another such tradition: the 21st birthday celebration.  Miles Teller was previously announced as one of two friends who take their buddy, an upstanding student just trying to study, on a raucous misadventure for his 21st birthday.  Today, Relativity Media officially announced that actors Justin Chon of The Twilight Saga and Skylar Astin from Hamlet 2 will join fill out the central trio in the comedy, and they'll be joined by Sarah Wright, who appeared in The House Bunny.

Jon Lucas and Scott Moore are in a good place.  The duo who wrote the screenplay for the most successful comedy of all time, The Hangover, have the Jason Bateman/Ryan Reynolds body-switch comedy The Change-Up hitting theaters this summer.  More importantly, they're making their feature directorial debut with 21 and Over, based on their own screenplay.  The comedy, centered around a raucous 21st birthday celebration, is casting, and has secured the first actor to play one of three lead characters.  Miles Teller, who appears in Rabbit Hole and the upcoming Footloose remake, was just announced to star in 21 and Over.

Hey, remember the red-band trailer for The Change-Up that opened with Jason Bateman taking liquid feces to the face and ended with him totally naked, cupping his unmentionables while marveling at his taint?  Well, now you can enjoy that trailer with feces intact, but without the male nudity and vulgarity, as there's a new green-band trailer for the body-switch comedy starring Bateman and Ryan Reynolds as two buddies who switch buddies after peeing in a wish-granting fountain together.  Gaze upon the trailer for The Change-Up, a comedy in the grand tradition of Vice Versa, Freaky Friday, and Like Father, Like Son.

Once he's done Green Lantern-ing this summer, Ryan Reynolds will play an emotionally stunted ladies man who switches bodies with Jason Bateman's uptright, married family man after the two drunkenly urinate in a fountain together and make a wish.  The Change-Up is a body-swapping comedy, but unlike Vice Versa, Freaky Friday, or Like Father, Like Son, this one includes baby feces to the face, lots of profanity, and Bateman totally naked, looking at his taint in a mirror.  But don't believe me, peep the age restricted red band trailer right here. 

Leslie Mann, who’s best known for her roles in husband Judd Apatow’s 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up has officially signed on to co-star with Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman in the upcoming film Change-Up, about two friends who somehow manage to switch bodies (sounds a bit like 17 Again, which also featured Mann).

White-hot Olivia Wilde ("House", upcoming TRON: Legacy and Cowboys & Aliens) has just joined Universal's The Change-Up, a high-concept comedy starring Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman. David Dobkin (The Wedding Crashers) is directing from a script written by Scott Moore and Jon Lucas (The Hangover). That's a comedy all-star team right there!