Tony Nominee Josh Gad & Paramount Team Up for New Comedy HEAVY DUTY

Josh Gad has lined up his next big screen role.

With Disney's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and RUSS AND ROGER GO BEYOND (in which he'll play legendary film critic Roger Ebert) on the horizon, the Tony nominee has partnered with Paramount Pictures for the new comedy HEAVY DUTY, based on an original idea by Gad, according to Deadline.

Written by Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit, the film follows "an ordinary guy who believes losing weight will help him live a more extraordinary life. He signs up for a wellness retreat with a group of fellow underachievers, only to face an unexpected test when things go awry."

Gad will next be seen in the role of stand-up comic Sam Kinison in Kinison, a biopic that will be helmed by Larry Charles and produced by David Permut from a script by Rich Wilkes. He starred, co-created and executive produced the 2012 NBC comedy series 1600 PENN and has appeared on Broadway in 'Book of Mormon', for which he received a Tony nomination and '25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.' He voiced the Snowman Olaf in Disney's animated hit, Frozen.

He will soon star as Roger Ebert in "Russ And Roger Go Beyond." On film, he was recently seen in "The Wedding Ringer" and Sony's "Pixels" and will soon lend his voice to the DreamWorks Animation film "Me and My Shadow." The actor just finished filming on Disney's live-action reboot of "Beauty and the Beast" where he plays sidekick LeFou. The film will hit theaters in March 2017.

Photo by Walter McBride