New ‘Pee-wee’ Film Is “Imminent,” Will Begin Shooting Next Year

According to Paul Reubens for the last several years, a new 'Pee-wee' film is always on the way, but now it seems like the progress has definitely been made and things are looking up for Pee-wee Herman and friends. Reubens, who created and portrays the beloved Pee-wee character, promises that the new film is "imminent." How imminent? Well, it's shooting next year.

The latest update on the Judd Apatow-produced 'Pee-wee' film comes from an interview with Reubens in Rolling Stone. The last we reported on the project, Apatow said that the film had a script from Reubens and Paul Rust. But things are now further along than that. From Reubens:

It’s been months and months of being right on the verge of being announced… I thought something was going to go public yesterday, actually, and that you’d be the first person I’d be talking about this with. But I’m thinking there will be something made public very soon. It’s going to get made shortly after the new year. I wish I could tell you about it right now, because… I mean, it’s amazing. It’s going to be amazing. It think it first got leaked four years ago or so that the movie was going to be made, and ever since then it’s just been stalling and stalling. So I'm really ready for this to happen. But I’m not kidding: It’s very imminent.

Very imminent! If the film is shooting next year, we could see a new 'Pee-wee' film by 2016. It's definitely more optimistic than Reubens' hopeful updates in the past, and given Apatow's commitment to the project and confirmation of an existing script with Rust, we're going to go ahead and buy into it. If you're unfamiliar with Rust's work, he's recently written for Scott Aukerman's IFC series 'Comedy Bang! Bang!,' which takes some inspiration from Pee-wee, so the script is definitely in good hands.