It might be somewhat of an odd pairing, but that's the one they're going with. The Hollywood Reporter tells us that Christina Applegate will play a hot mom in the new comedy The Rocker, starring opposite Rainn Wilson. Fox Atomic will shovel this one out, with Peter Cattaneo (The Full Monty) directing while Shawn Levy and Tom McNulty produce through their 21 Laps Entertainment. Wilson, who is better known as Dwight from NBC's The Office, will play a failed, over-the-hill drummer in the film who decides he wants another chance at super stardom when the band he was booted from 20 years earlier hits it big. Only problem is he'll have to start from the bottom ... by joining his nephew's (Josh Gad) high school garage band. Look for lots of "Dude, why is our drummer some old, goofy looking guy?" jokes to be present throughout.

Applegate will play Wilson's love interest in the flick; the mother of the garage band's lead guitarist. Okay, that's just weird, although I definitely see the humor in it. HR also reports that Jeff Garlin, Emma Stone, Teddy Geiger, Jason Sudeikis, Jane Lynch and Demetri Martin have been cast in various roles. Wallace Wolodarsky (The Simpsons) and Maya Forbes (The Larry Sanders Show) are currently re-writing Ryan Jaffe's original script, while production is set to begin next week in Toronto. Applegate's career was recently revived (again) after she received a Tony nomination for her performance in Sweet Charity (which I saw and thought she was fantastic); prior to that, she just sort of blended into the background as that cute blonde who looked familiar ("Oh yeah, she was on Married with Children!"). This will mark her first big-screen role since appearing in both Surviving Christmas and Anchorman back in 2004.