I'd Buy a Ticket

In 1996, Clive James wrote that

The twentieth-century philosophers whose names are inseparable, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell, were such a great double act that there simply has to be a buddy movie sooner or later. At last, the material is all set to be licked into a script. Ray Monk has now matched his justly lauded biography of Wittgenstein with a fat and equally enthralling first volume wrapping up the earlier half of Bertrand Russell's long life--Bertrand Russell: The Spirit of Solitude 1872-1921--and is sitting on the hottest Hollywood prospect since Paul Newman and Robert Redford signed on for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

James predicted that all the A-list male stars would wish to play Wittgenstein, but that

Nobody bankable--not even Steve Martin, a philosophy wonk who can actually explicate Principia Mathematica while wearing a plastic arrow through his head--will want to play the physically unappealing Russell, so the way should be clear for the perfect choice: Gene Wilder. Fluctuating uncontrollably between idealism and disillusion, forever persuaded that sexual fulfilment is at hand in the form of a luscious girl in a red dress, Wilder's person, like his appearance, exactly fits a part that should revive his career. The only strike against Wilder is that even he has too much gravitas for the role.

In the postscript attached to the essay in Cultural Cohesion: The Essential Essays (2003), James added

My idea for a movie about Russell and Wittgenstein was meant to depend for its effect on its manifest absurdity. But a Hollywood producer was on the the phone the week after the piece came out, talking large talk about writing a treatment. Since then I've heard nothing, which I suppose is a relief, because it was evident that he wanted to make the kind of comedy that says it's a comedy up front, like Nuns on the Run. I probably put him off when I told him the truth: as Russell proved, it isn't funny unless you play it straight.