Jason Bateman and director Seth Gordon became so enamored with Melissa McCarthy after Bridesmaids, they not only cast in her in their follow-up to 2011’s Horrible Bosses, they rewrote what was intended to be a male lead for her. Introduced in the trailer through a grade-A deployment of Rick Ross’s “Hustlin,’” McCarthy’s Sandy Bigelow Patterson shares a name — and soon a bunch of violence — with Bateman. The chemistry looks promising, as does the hobbit joke. (Not for its hopefully fun-spirited meanness toward McCarthy, but for the immaculately Michael Bluth–like delivery of that “I’m goin’ after Bilbo” line.)
