Bad Moms has lost two key players – Deadline reports that Leslie Mann and Judd Apatow have dropped out of the R-rated comedy (which is still set up at Paramount Pictures), citing delays in production that were going to make the project tough to balance in their busy schedules. The pair, who are married and had planned to do the pic as a team with Mann starring and Apatow producing, needed the movie to be rolling cameras by mid-July, and it apparently just wasn’t going to be ready in time.
Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, who wrote The Hangover, are still attached to direct the comedy, which centers on a trio of harangued, overworked mothers who, weary of being judged by the helicopter parents who rule over their kids’ school, team up to challenge the restrictive social atmosphere present throughout their community.
The pic is still together and expected to get cameras rolling sometime this summer, with Paramount execs and Block Entertainment’s Bill Block leading a casting search to fill out the film ahead of that start date.
While it’s of course a shame that Mann and Apatow are no longer involved, their touch will likely be felt in the finished product, given that Apatow tweaked the script once aboard in order to make the movie funnier and a better fit for Mann. And that Lucas and Moore are still involved means Bad Moms will probably still attract a high-profile cast – we’ll keep you posted on which stars are in the mix as soon as we hear some buzz on that front.