Steve Carell to star in Lunatics

Steve Carell is attached to produce and star in an adaptation of Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel’s novel Lunatics, Deadline reports.

The as-yet unpublished novel follows two soccer dads who engage in a minor feud which soon escalates and kicks off a life-threatening worldwide catastrophe. It will arrive on book shelves next January.

Carell is set to play one of the dads – namely, a pet store owner named Philip Horkman – in the Universal Pictures production.

No writer or director is attached at this point.

Lunatics is yet another project on Carell’s increasingly busy slate following his exit from The Office. His upcoming films include duelling magician flick Burt Wonderstone, Charlie Kaufman‘s Hollywood satire/musical Frank or Francis, Bennett Miller‘s Foxcatcher (in which he plays real-life schizophrenic, billionaire and murderer John du Pont) and the particularly strange sounding drama Dogs of Babel.

Carell also has apocalyptic romcom Seeking a Friend for the End of the World and relationship-therapy comedy Great Hope Springs slated for 2012.

Discuss: So, he’s definitely defying typecasting!