It’s a big, busy day for Ron Howard, who’s apparently been rushing all over town and putting little Post-it Notes on things he might do while he waits for Universal to decide whether it wants to pay for The Dark Tower after all. Earlier today Variety reported that Howard is considering taking over Rush, Peter Morgan’s script about Formula 1 racer Niki Lauda (and not the Jason Patric film about two cops who get hooked on heroin). Now Deadline is saying that Howard may partner with producer David Koepp on a live-action version of Spy Vs. Spy, the dialogue-eschewing, monochromatic comic strip regularly featured in MAD Magazine. The big-screen adaptation would be “a physical and highly visual action comedy with two spies going mano a mano in ruthless fashion,” over and over again, with no contextual clues as to their characters’ relationship, and no noticeable progression in the storyline. Spy Vs. Spy will be a daringly avant-garde statement on the way war robs man of his basic identity, and proceeds at its plodding eternal pace toward the ultimate realization that it is futile. Oh wait, Ron Howard is directing this? We mean it’ll be a goofy comedy with explosions.

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