Back in 2011, long before we became men who couldn’t sleep but desperately needed to, we reported on a film adaptation of D.C. Pierson’s comic novel The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep And Never Had To that was in the works from Mystery Team director Dan Eckman. Pierson, Eckman, and their frequent collaborator Meggie McFadden are members of the same Derrick Comedy sketch group as Donald Glover, with all three following him to Community in various behind-the-scenes and on-screen roles. But despite the never-ending cash cow that is being associated with Community, their movie is still in need of financing from Hollywood investor-types or mysterious Dickensian benefactors. So the trio has produced the below proof-of-concept film in hopes of attracting some attention.


Like the book it’s based on, The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep And Never Had To concerns a pair of high-school outcasts who discover that they have the ability to bring their homemade comic book to life—and naturally, certain shadowy authorities have some problems with that. And like Mystery Team, the video suggests a clash of extraordinary circumstance and naïveté that could be quite funny, if they ever get the money to make it. They’ve already pulled off some impressive effects here, as well as pulled in a cast that includes Grand Budapest Hotel’s Tony Revolori and The Hunger Games’ Jack Quaid. Any people with money out there who want to see what they could accomplish with a little more can contact the filmmakers at whocouldntsleep@gmail.com.


THE BOY WHO COULDN’T SLEEP AND NEVER HAD TO proof-of-concept from Dan Eckman on Vimeo.