For the past decade or so, Paul Reubens has been working hard to bring his most popular character, Pee-wee Herman, back to the big screen. His career was basically put on hold due to that pesky indecent exposure charge back in 1991, which caused a wave of outrage in the media, but slowly he has been putting the pieces back together again with some roles in movies like Mystery Men, Blow, and more recently, Life During Wartime.

Last year was a big year for Reubens as he announced a new Pee-wee Herman stage show, and continued development on a script for a brand new Pee-wee Herman movie. Still, without the right allies, it remained unlikely that another Pee-wee movie would ever get made. Fortunately for him, it looks like he may have found the best ally he could ever hope for: according to Variety, Judd Apatow will be producing a new Pee-Wee Herman movie for Universal Pictures!

Apparently Judd Apatow is a big fan of Reubens, and the two already teamed up for a short Funny or Die video earlier this year called Pee-wee Gets an iPad. Apatow had this to say about the project:

“Let’s face it, the world needs more Pee-wee Herman… I am so excited to be working with Paul Reubens — who is an extraordinary and ground-breaking actor and writer. It’s so great to watch him return with such relevance.”

Reubens is writing the script for the movie with Paul Rust, who is best known as the gawky star of I Love You, Beth Cooper. It is being described as a “road pic build around a gigantic adventure.” This has me pretty excited as Pee-wee’s Big Adventure is one of my all-time favourite movies, and if they can even come close to replicating that formula, I will be very happy. I only hope that the character still holds up, and that his innocent sense of humour hasn’t been lost over the years. What do you think, are you excited about a Pee-wee Herman comeback? And has anyone out there seen the new stage show?