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Steve Zahn Replaced In ‘Diary Of A Wimpy Kid,’ Couldn’t Be Happier

By Stacey Cole
Published on: 04:36 PST, Feb 5, 2017

Steve Zahn may have been replaced in the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid film, but the actor loves the new replacement, according to Cinema Blend. The 49-year-old actor, who starred as Frank Heffley in three films of the Wimpy Kid franchise is being replaced by Tom Everett Scott.

Interestingly, Steve Zahn and Scott know each other and are close pals. The two actors both had breakthrough roles in Tom Hanks’ directorial debut That Thing You Do!, which was released more than two decades ago, in 1996.

And now that Steve Zahn is being replaced by his That Thing You Do! co-star, Cinema Blend reached out to the actor to learn his reaction. But Zahn was all sweet about it, and said he was enthusiastic about Scott, his “buddy,” playing the role in a family-friendly reboot of Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

“Dude, he called me up and he’s like, ‘I’m playing your part.’ Like, what?? I couldn’t believe it. How weird is that? They were shooting in Atlanta. I live in Kentucky. I’m like, I’m driving down. I’m driving down.”

But Steve Zahn was quick to add that he didn’t go there, because he had been too busy with his kids. The actor shares two kids with wife Robyn Peterman, son Henry James Zahn and daughter Audrey Clair Zahn.

Steve Zahn played the role of Frank Heffley in the first three films of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid franchise in 2010, 2011 and 2012. While the franchise was a hit, creators had to reboot it as the young cast aged out of the main parts.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid, a new film in which Scott will show if he has what it takes to be playing Steve Zahn’s iconic part of Frank Heffley, hits theaters on May 19, two months before Zahn’s War for the Planet of the Apes comes out on July 14.

In the sequel of 2014’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Steve Zahn is playing alongside Sara Canning, Andy Serkis, Woody Harrelson, Ty Olsson, Judy Greer and many others. War for the Planet of the Apes, which is being directed by Matt Reeves, will be centered around the fierce battle between humans and a nation of genetically-evolved apes, according to Gazette Review.

But that’s not the only project that has been keeping Steve Zahn busy lately. The 49-year-old That Thing You Do! actor is also set to appear in Andrew Haigh’s Lean on Pete, which is expected to hit theaters this year.

In the Haigh-directed film, Steve Zahn will appear alongside Steve Buscemi, Travis Fimmel, Chloe Sevigny, Amy Seimetz and others. The drama will depict the story of a young boy who desperately and adamantly searches for his long lost relative.

In 2013, Steve Zahn could be seen in the Oscar-winning Dallas Buyers Club, for which he and fellow actors, including Matthew McConaughey, Jared Leto, and Jennifer Garner, were all nominated for Screen Actors Guild Awards.

For this year’s Screen Actors Guild Award, which was held last Sunday, Steve Zahn was also nominated with the rest of the cast of Captain Fantastic, but ended up losing the nomination to Hidden Figures starring Mahershala Ali, Kevin Costner, Taraji P. Henson, Janelle Monáe, Jim Parsons, and Octavia Spencer.

In the years between his two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, Steve Zahn starred in 2015’s The Ridiculous 6, 2015’s The Good Dinosaur as well as TV series Treme, Mind Games, Modern Family, and Mad Dog. In 2000, Zahn won the Independent Spirit Awards’ Best Supporting Male award for his role in Happy, Texas.

[Featured Image by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images]

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