Cheech and Chong working on new movie

ASPEN, Colo.- Cheech and Chong, the seminal stoner comedy duo of the 1970s, might return to movie theaters soon.

Speaking to reporters at the US Comedy Arts Festival after their first stage reunion in 25 years, the duo said they are in the final stages of writing a script and hope to start production sooner rather than later.

"We are working on a new movie now," Cheech Marin said. "We are nearly done with the script." Both comedians said they would like to see the film out this year, maybe even during the summer if work progresses fast.

Asked about the plot, the duo said it will not be much different from what the fans have enjoyed from them in the past, even though the movie will have an "age- and time-appropriate" feel, Marin said.

"It will be a movie about two guys who have all sorts of adventures together," Tommy Chong said with a wry smile.

The two joked about working titles they have had for the film. "'Grumpy Old Stoners' was one of them," said Chong, and Marin suggested "Lord of the Smoke Rings" as an alternative.

The duo said they repeatedly had tried to reunite after not spending time together for years. But when Chong's daughter called Marin a little more than a year ago, the time was ripe. "We had each lived our own lives, but I think we were so close" in the past that the reunion worked, Chong said.

The duo soon started work on the new script, but Chong's nine-month jail sentence for selling pot pipes, which ended in July, interrupted the work.

Still on probation, Chong is back in the scriptwriting game. The duo confirmed that, originally, they let others take a crack at writing the script.

"But that didn't really work for us because we didn't like their stuff," Chong said.

According to the duo, they initially cut a deal with New Line Cinema to do the reunion movie, but now the film might wind up with a different distributor. They wouldn't elaborate on the situation.

Asked whether the new movie mainly would attract teenagers and people of their own generation, Marin and Chong said they believe that will depend on the publicity strategy and hope to attract as many people as possible.

Chong reminisced about how Michael Eisner, now the Walt Disney Co. CEO, initially rejected the duo's first film, 1978's "Up in Smoke," when Eisner was head of Paramount Pictures. After a screening of the finished film, "people went nuts, and I met (Eisner) in the lobby, and he looked like he had (messed) up big time," Chong said.

- REUTERS/HOLLYWOOD REPORTER