Los Angeles, Sep 2 (IANS): Actor Josh Gad has been roped in to portray film critic Roger Ebert in “Russ & Roger”, a comedy centering on film critic and filmmaker Russ Meyer.

Actor Will Ferrell will take on the role of Meyer, who made movies like “Wild Gals of the Naked West” and “Faster Pussycat! Kill Kill!”, reports hollywoodreporter.com.

“Russ & Roger” is a debaucherous comedy centering on two outsiders who defied the Hollywood establishment and made one of the first X-rated films ever released by a major movie studio.

Michael Winterbottom is directing the feature, which has a script by Chris Cluess. Gad’s involvement was initially rumoured last winter, even before the project had its director.

The 34-year-old became popular when he voiced Olaf the snowman in “Frozen”. He starred with Adam Sandler and Peter Dinklage in action-comedy “Pixels” and just wrapped production on “Beauty and the Beast”, in which he plays Le Fou.