Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello Reunite to Reimagine Roger Corman’s The Wasp Woman

Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello team up again for a comedic reimagining of Roger Corman’s cult sci-fi horror The Wasp Woman.

Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello Reunite for a Comedic Reimagining of Roger Corman’s The Wasp Woman

If there was ever a Roger Corman deep cut begging for a warped, character-driven comedy overhaul, The Wasp Woman might be at the top of the list — and now it’s getting exactly that treatment from the minds behind Strangers with Candy.

Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello are officially reuniting for a new feature film: a comedic reimagining of the 1959 sci-fi horror cult classic The Wasp Woman. The project brings the longtime collaborators back together decades after creating one of the most gleefully uncomfortable comedies ever to air on Comedy Central.

For genre fans, the pairing feels strangely perfect. Corman’s original film — a low-budget morality tale about vanity, aging, and science run amok — centered on Janice Starlin, a cosmetics mogul who experiments with queen wasp enzymes to reclaim her youth, only to slowly transform into a violent insect-human hybrid. It’s pulpy, bizarre, and loaded with themes that feel tailor-made for Sedaris’ brand of fearless physical comedy and Dinello’s satirical instincts.

Sedaris and Dinello’s creative partnership dates back to their early days in The Second City touring company in the early ’90s, where they also crossed paths with Stephen Colbert. That collaboration eventually gave birth to Strangers with Candy, the cult comedy series that followed Sedaris’ unforgettable Jerri Blank — an aggressively inappropriate anti-heroine who helped define a generation of alt-comedy. The show’s influence only grew after its Sundance-premiering film adaptation, which boasted an absurdly stacked cast including Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Allison Janney, Chris Pratt, and Sir Ian Holm.

Now, Dinello is set to write and direct The Wasp Woman, with Sedaris strongly expected to take center stage. While casting has not yet been announced, Dinello has already made it clear that Sedaris was his immediate inspiration for the role.

“When I read the story about a former supermodel turned dynamic businesswoman who slowly metamorphosed into a violent insect,” Dinello said, “I immediately thought, Amy Sedaris.”

Sedaris, for her part, seems more than ready to dive back into this creative lane. “I love working with these guys,” she shared. “Can’t wait!”

Behind the scenes, the project is stacked with collaborators who know this world well. Joseph Middleton — who worked on the Strangers with Candy film and spent a decade as head of casting at Paramount — is assembling the cast. Producing duties are being handled by Mark Roberts (Strangers with Candy), Jordan Fields of Radial Entertainment (which owns the Roger Corman library via Shout! Studios), Meyer Shwarzstein of Another Brainy Idea, and Michael Richter of A Major Production.

For horror-comedy fans, this isn’t just a remake — it’s a collision of cult cinema histories. A Roger Corman sci-fi oddity filtered through the unapologetically deranged sensibilities of Sedaris and Dinello has the potential to be either gloriously unhinged or deeply unsettling… or, ideally, both.

Either way, The Wasp Woman just became one of the more intriguing genre projects quietly buzzing into development.