So Who is Etan Cohen?

Now assigned to rewrite Ghostbusters 3, Etan Cohen is a name you should get used to hearing around this blog. So who is he?

Etan is a screenwriter with a versatile range in comedy. He's taken on the dry, deadpan tone of King of the Hill and Idocracy as well as the over-the-top stupid tone of Beavis and Butt-head and... Idiocracy. He's taken is back in time in Men in Black and forward in time in Idiocracy. He's written for Ben Stiller in Madagascar 2 and Tropic Thunder.

Etan has collaborated on scripts with big names. He takes their ideas and plusses them, turning them into modern, well reviewed screenplays.  Ben Stiller kicked the idea for Tropic Thunder around for years before handing the reins over to Cohen, where he crafted the majority of the script. The original idea for Men in Black 3 was suggested by Will Smith on the set of Men in Black II, then put into Cohen's hands to mold. Cohen found the characters and brought them back to the screen in a fashion true to form. With Madagascar 2 he revisited the first movie's characters and the film saw even better reviews, one of those rare sequels that tops the first.

The mundane humor of King of the Hill paired with the sci-fi elements of Men in Black are exactly what Ghostbusters III needs. Cohen knows how to please and compliment the ideas of the original creators and how to balance science fiction with comedy. He knows how to bring a decade old franchise back from the dead, to good reviews.

It sounds likely that elements of the previous Ghostbusters draft will live on, with Etan giving them his own personal rinse. He's good at grabbing the source material, grabbing the new ideas and making sense out of them. If anybody can make this movie a worth while blockbuster, it is Etan Cohen.

Short list of comedy folks in Cohen movies that I wouldn't mind seeing in Ghostbusters III: Danny McBride, Bill Hader, Sasha Baron Cohen,