Steve Carell and Sandra Bullock will team up for “The Abstinence Teacher”.

This movie will be based on a Tom Parrotta 2007 novel called “The Abstinence Teacher”. The story follows a liberal-minded divorcee, Ruth Ramsey, a sex education teacher who doesn’t see eye to eye with the more conservative folks in her community. In the beginning, she bangs heads with her daughter’s soccer coach, a born again Christian.

However, she ends up falling for him. It is believed that Bullock will play the teacher, and Carell will be the coach. Carell is looking forward to the comedy after his more serious performance in “Little Miss Sunshine”. As of October 2007, Perrotta was working on the screenplay, which will be co-directed by “Little Miss Sunshine” directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris.

According to Perrotta, it is “all about sex education and the culture wars.” He was inspired to write the novel after reading of the influence of evangelical voters on the 2004 presidential election. “I did feel somewhat inadequate as a novelist, just like I’d missed something huge happening in this country. I really did set out to kind of investigate that world,” he stated. In addition, thenovel touches on other issues such as homophobia and sexism in the suburban setting.