Will Ferrell and Rebecca Hall make an unlikely screen pairing but their names are linked for an upcoming film project. According to Variety, Hall is to join Ferrell in a new indie drama, Everything Must Go, which is inspired by a Raymond Carver short story.

Everything Must Go’s script spent time perched high on 2008's Black List and tells the story of an alcoholic (Ferrell) who relapses, losing his job and getting locked out of his home by his wife. Since she dumped all his possessions outside, he sets up his furniture outside and starts living in his front yard, deciding to hold a lawn sale for all his goods. Hall is to play a sympathetic new arrival to the neighbourhood, who forms a special relationship with the protagonist.

This will be the second adaptation of Raymond Carver’s short story, 'Why Don’t You Dance' (from his collection What We Talk About When We talk About Love). The first, an 18-minute short from 2005, was entitled Everything Goes. A closer adaptation of the tale, this focused on a young couple who visit the yard sale looking to furnish their first place together and have an odd moment with the alcoholic. It starred Hugo Weaving (as the protagonist) and Abbie Cornish (as one half of the young couple) and was written and directed by Andrew Kotako. You can watch it here. The most famous Carver-inspired film to date is Robert Altman’s Short Cuts, which linked tales from nine of his short stories into a critically-acclaimed ensemble piece.

Dan Rush wrote the screenplay for Everything Must Go and is poised to direct – a first time for him on both counts. But what's interesting about this project is that it seems that Ferrell is about to make a Jim Carrey-like leap from slapstick to straight drama. Will he pull it off or will audiences refuse to see him as anything but a hulking, comic man-baby?

You can read Variety's story here.