Ryan Gosling Signs on for Untitled Steve Carell Comedy

Ryan Gosling chilled us to the bone in Murder by Numbers; he made us ache with empathy in Lars and the Real Girl; he made us swoon/roll our eyes in The Notebook.  But the question remains: can he make us shoot overpriced cola out of our noses?  We’ll find out soon enough.  Variety reports (and laineygossip.com reported a couple days ago) that the 29-year-old Canadian actor is set to co-star in an upcoming Steve Carell comedy for Warner Brothers.  The as-yet-untitled project is said to revolve around a man (Carell) contending with marital troubles and a sputtering relationship with his children.  Gosling will assume the role of the central character’s “suave best friend” in the pic, which will be helmed by John Requa and Glenn Ficarra, directors of the upcoming and already-controversial black comedy I Love You Phillip Morris.

Details on this project are obviously sparse at this point.  The script was written by Dan Fogelman, the scribe behind typically light fare like Bolt, Cars, and Fred Claus.  However, given the presence of Gosling along with helmers Requa and Ficarra (who you might also know as the writers of Bad Santa), I don’t think it’d be unreasonable to expect this particular Carell comedy to be a bit darker/weightier in nature.