Bill Mur­ray is set to star in Aziz Ansari’s direc­to­r­i­al fea­ture debut

As of late, Aziz Ansari has been some­what on the outs of the indus­try; alle­ga­tions of sex­u­al mis­con­duct in 2018 were fol­lowed by a pro­fes­sion­al down­turn, with poor notices for the third sea­son of his once-acclaimed series Mas­ter of None and pal­try cov­er­age for his pair of stand-up spe­cials. But he’s still work­ing, and what’s more, he’s plan­ning to take his career into a brand new phase.

This after­noon, Dead­line report­ed that the come­di­an, actor, and writer will get into the fea­ture direct­ing game with a star­ring vehi­cle in the works at Search­light. The as-of-now-unti­tled dram­e­dy also has an eye-catch­ing costar in Bill Mur­ray, whose lead­ing roles have grown few­er and far­ther between, name-brand auteurs being the run­ning theme in his tak­en gigs. (His recent appear­ance in the fourth Ghost­busters is a notable outlier.)

The film will adapt sur­geon Atul Gawande’s 2014 book ​‘Being Mor­tal: Med­i­cine and What Mat­ters in the End’, a non-fic­tion explo­ration of end-of-life care. His most con­tro­ver­sial notion put forth in the book is that doc­tors should focus on bet­ter the years a patient has remain­ing rather than extend­ing sur­vival for its own sake, reassess­ing death as a wel­come inevitabil­i­ty rather than a doom to be fore­stalled as long as possible.

How this will be trans­lat­ed into a nar­ra­tive film is anyone’s guess, as is what con­nec­tion Ansari – who’s hereto­fore spe­cial­ized in easy­go­ing obser­va­tion­al com­e­dy – has to the mate­r­i­al. Though his 2015 book con­duct­ing an inquest into courtship cus­toms around the world seemed equal­ly out of left field, and shared the intel­lec­tu­al curios­i­ty angle, so maybe it fits after all.

In any case, the film has been slat­ed for a release in 2023. Few things sound quite so Sun­dance-friend­ly as ​“A‑list come­di­an directs soul­ful indie movie about this won­drous jour­ney called life,” so expect to see it there.