Slate’s Peter Hyman looks at more than two decades’ worth of attempts to bring John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces to the silver screen. The legendary comic novel was published in 1980, 11 years after Toole’s suicide. As Hyman writes, the book

explores the misadventures of Ignatius J. Reilly, a 300-pound antihero who resides with his mother and is given to leisurely strolls around his native New Orleans, during which he levies his incisive judgments on everything he encounters. As described by [Walker] Percy in the book’s foreword, Ignatius is a “slob extraordinary, a mad Oliver Hardy, a fat Don Quixote, a perverse Thomas Aquinas rolled into one.” And for all of the novel’s literary qualities—the sensory-specific perfection of Toole’s descriptions of New Orleans, the loopy gracefulness of his prose, and his gift for black comedy—it is the creation of Ignatius that stands as its signature achievement.

Ever since the book’s publication, studio exec Scott Kramer has been trying to get a film made, so far with no luck. Reportedly there’s now a deal in place with a script by Kramer and Steven Soderbergh, David Gordon Green as director, and Will Ferrell set to star as Reilly. But for reasons touched on only vaguely in the Slate piece, the project doesn’t appear to be advancing.

Hyman looks at some of the other stalled adaptations over the years, though he probably over-reaches with talk of a “curse,” beginning with John Belushi’s death in 1982:

… a day or so before Belushi was supposed to meet with executives at Universal to finalize his involvement, he died of a drug overdose at the Chateau Marmont…. Other deaths tangentially linked to the project include those of actors John Candy and Chris Farley, both of whom were considered for the lead role before they died. And, for those so predisposed, the recent devastation that Hurricane Katrina wrought on New Orleans provides further amplification.

Yes, Farley and Candy were surely “considered,” as every comic actor of girth in Hollywood undoubtedly has been at one point or another. And linking Katrina to Dunces is just plain silly – especially since everybody knows that the hurricane was caused by an explosion in an undersea U.S. military base housing a captured alien warship.

Anyway, maybe it’s time for Hollywood to think outside the box. Quillblog loves Will Ferrell and all, but there’s already somebody else out there who’s absolutely perfect for the Ignatius Reilly role – he just happens to exist only in two dimensions. To see who it is, click on the second link below. An animated Confederacy of Dunces, anyone?

Related links:
Click here for the Slate piece
Click here to see the perfect Ignatius J. Reilly