Ben Stiller: The New Magic Mike?

What would happen if Magic Mike and The Social Network had a one night stand? Quite possible I Am Chippendales , in which Ben Stiller will star as one of the early partners to the iconic haven of on-stage male nudity. The project comes from True Blood and Six Feet Under creator Alan Ball.

Ball's directing and producing the film, eportedly being adapting the story from the Rodney Sheldon book (which I can mysteriously find no evidence of on Amazon or other online book retailers). According to The A.V. Club the project's been around for some fifteen years before it landed with Ball and stiller. The story of the film follows "Paul Snider and Somen “Steve” Banerjee, the men who founded the famed skin joint, before arson, racketeering and murder got into the mix. Stiller will play Nick DeNoia, a choreographer who helped conceive the idea that Banerjee ran with."

Ball's been more well-known in recent years for his contributions to HBO, but he also wrote the screenplay for American Beauty — which he won an Oscar for. Like American Beauty, this one's also got its dark undertones, what with the aforementioned arson and murder, and (spoiler alert?) history tells us that Stiller's character may find himself the victim of one of those things.