EXCLUSIVE: Comedian Gregg Turkington – best known for his “anti-comedian” Neil Hamburger persona – is reuniting with The Comedy director Rick Alverson on a new feature backed by Nomadic Independence and record label Jagjaguwar.

Entertainment stars Turkington as a broken and aging comic, known only as “The Comedian,” who travels across the Southwestern United States to meet his estranged daughter while attempting to revive his dwindling career. Along the way, his identity begins to deteriorate amid a series of encounters with the desert populace and a string of dead end shows.

Production began this week in SoCal with John C. Reilly, Michael Cera, Mud‘s Tye Sheridan, Dogtooth‘s Angeliki Papoulia, and Dean Stockwell joining Turkington in the cast. Turkington wrote the script with Alverson and writer-comedian Tim Heidecker of Tim and Eric, who with Turkington starred as insufferable Williamsburg hipsters in Alverson’s polarizing 2012 Sundance entry The Comedy.

Nomadic Independence’s Brooke Bernard, Ryan Zacarias, and Ryan Lough recently wrapped filming on Jonas Carpignano’s Mediterranea and are producing Entertainment with George Rush. Jagjaguwar’s Chris Swanson and Ben Swanson are exec producing alongside Jack Black’s Electric Dynamite.

Reilly is repped by WME. Cera’s repped by ICM. Sheridan is repped by WME. Papoulia is repped by United Agents in the UK. Stockwell is repped by Open Entertainment. CAA, together with the producers, arranged financing for the film and will rep North American rights as Epic Pictures Group handles foreign.

Meanwhile, Turkington and Heidecker also play movie reviewers in their On Cinema At The Cinema web series for Adult Swim, now in its fifth season. Check out their latest episode on Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes for a taste: