Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore, Spun, Coconut Records) will play an aging Brooklynite/alcoholic writer who experiences a nasty breakup and finds himself in the position of a Philip Marlowe-ish gumshoe in the new HBO series Bored to Death. Written by former New York Press columnist and novelist, Jonathan Ames, the half-hour comedy will go into production this September. Seth Gordon, director of The King of Kong, will work as a consultant on the show.
Schwartzman’s character “takes out an ad pretending to be a private detective and starts taking cases — solving some and making others worse.” You may remember that back in 2004 Schwartzman starred in the failed Fox sitcom, Cracking Up, [...]

This is a minor update, sure, but we still consider Warner Bros.’ decision to swipe the throwback horror anthology, Trick ‘R Treat, off their release slate to be a quizzical and ‘tarded ball drop. The Internet was going nuts for the film after it scored stellar reviews from a sneak at The Alamo. Its Halloween release date in 2007 was a no-brainer. Buzz remained steady into ‘08 after WB pushed it back and then, nothing.Movie Hole just checked in with director and X2 screenwriter, Michael Dougherty…
“The struggle continues. There’s interest from another distributor so negotiations have begun. Keep your severed fingers crossed!”
With WB’s Creepshow franchise carelessly spanning time in straight-to-DVD [...]

Update: The deal is now gone!

Amazon.com is WAS offering The Ultimate DVD Collection of Planet of the Apes for only $58.99! This is 67% off the suggested retail price of $179.98. The 14-disc set includes: the entire run of movies, TV series, animated series, and the 2001 Tim Burton remake. A nd not only that, the collection is contained in one of the coolest DVD cases ever created, a bust of Caesar. The set is limited to 10,000 copies and comes with a numbered certificate of authenticity.

Today the angels looking down on Scranton, Pennsylvania are crooning “Beers in Heaven.” Steve Carell has signed on to star as Dunder Mifflin’s quasi-top dog, Michael Scott, on NBC’s The Office for three more years. An understandably elated, Ricky Gervais, broke the news on his blog…
“Steve Carell (now one of the most bankable film stars in the world) has just signed up for another three years with us. He is the hardest working man in Hollywood and the harder he works the better it is for me. I mean… well done Steve you are wonderful. …Steve had to do months of that in Evan Almighty and I heard he didn’t [...]

The franchise that floated “torture porn” into news offices this decade like a message in a bottle now looks to join the endless straight-to-DVD knockoffs it spawned. We’re speculating that Hostel 3 will bypass a theatrical release, but Bloody Disgusting has confirmed that early talks have started inside Lionsgate/Screen Gems to make a second sequel a reality. The series’ creator/director/spokesperson, Eli Roth, will reportedly not serve as writer or director on the sequel. We expect him to update his MySpace with an endorsement or a rant soon enough, and if so, we’ll update accordingly.
Last summer, Hostel 2 failed to reach $20 million at the domestic box office after a boatload of hype, and Roth later announced a big budget action/sci-fi film (not Cell) that remains under wraps. That news drew [...]

Hey Life: why? After millions of lunch room dream movie arguments in the ’80s; after spiders launched webs inside their Planet Hollywoods, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone are finally teaming up on screen! It’s inglorious, bastards. The Times Online reports that they’ll co-star in the highest profile Bollywood flick to date, Incredible Love, the story of an Indian stuntman who can’t find true romance in the States (aw). C’mon, just have a duel with Nerf rockets instead.
The film is headlined by Indian stars, Ashkay Kumar (Singh is Kinng) and Kareena Kapoor (Bewaffa) and will film at Universal Studios, a first for the flashy Indian cinema. Apparently, Stallone will have a larger part than Arnold, and it wasn’t clarified whether they’d be playing their [...]

If you care to witness a superb ’80s montage of hot girls working out in zany leotards in a movie co-starring Crispin Glover being whipped by a dominatirix, rent My Tutor (not the forthcoming remake). According to the trades, the cult classic/cheesy sex romp from 1983 is being reimagined by Mark A. Altman, the producer of D.O.A. and Uwe Boll’s House of the Dead, and screenwriter Steven Kriozere (Pam Anderson’s V.I.P.). This movie’s going to be not-great just like its dad!
As Cinematical points out, maybe this is the nascent start of a remake avalanche for the beloved D-movie sex romp genre, which includes highlights like Hardbodies, Screwballs, Oddballs, Meatballs [...]

Did you know that you can now watch Finding Nemo online? Yes, the entire film! And I’m not talking about Bit Torrent, I’m talking about free and completely legal! Taking a cue from ABC.com, Disney has decided to begin streaming movies that air during the Saturday Night Wonderful World of Disney presentations. You will be able to stream the movies anytime in the week following the network presentation on Disney.com. I’m not sure what the exact quality of the stream is, but I’d guess that it was close to DVD quality. Upcoming films include Monsters Inc. (June 16-20), Haunted Mansion (June 30-July 4), Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (July [...]

UPDATE 06/11/08: Let’s just say that if you want Fav aboard for Iron Man 2, umm, it’s a good time to let Marvel know.
And everything was going so well! Today, Peter reported on director Jon Favreau’s moderately disconcerting statement to fans regarding Marvel Studios‘ proposed 2010 release date for Iron Man 2. In summary: Sounds like a rush-job, there’s no script, and like a shady GF/BF in the summer Marvel hasn’t called him in weeks! We haven’t speculated on the reasons for why Fav is not yet signed for a sequel, but after consulting with inside sources IESB just called out the studio for being cheap (and crazy).
“So bottom line, [...]

Deep Discount is running their biannual DVD and Blu-ray sale. With the coupon code DDAF you can get 20% off the already lower than low prices (with the exception of pre-orders). Also, posters, Fun Stuff and Storage Units are included in the sale.
To give you an example of the kind of deals you can get, I was able to snag the 20-disc Star Trek Motion Pictures Collection (which includes all 10 movies) for $55.03 with FREE Shipping! You could even grab all four volumes of the James Bond Collection (40 discs, 20 movies) for only $113.60! Criterion Collection DVDs and Blu-ray discs are now affordable! The sale will run [...]

Well, it looks like Guy Ritchie (right) and Joel Silver’s Sgt. Rock will have to wait. Ritchie will direct Sherlock Holmes for Warner Bros., an adaptation of producer Lionel Wigram’s upcoming comic book. Neil Marshall was previously attached to helm, and WB has said that the film will have the same realism and seriousness as Batman Begins. Mirroring our modern man (yeah, right), this iteration of Holmes will focus more on the character’s formidable pugilism, swordsmanship (hello, ladies) and an appetite for, yep, adventure. Dan Lin (The Departed, 10,000 BC, Terminator 4) will co-produce.
Created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the 19th Century, some of the British detective’s “Victorian stuffiness” [...]

I’m sorry we didn’t hear about this one sooner. /Film reader Jake G sent this one over: Amazon.com has Samsung BD-P1400 1080p Blu-Ray Disc Player for sale for only $269.98, which is more than $130 bucks off the retail price. At the exact moment of this posting, 86% of the inventory is claimed, you only have two and a half hours left (if that) before the deal is GONE.

Thought Slashfilm had let this one get past us, did you? No way! Like a freshly charged cougar stashing away a coveted Von Dutch trucker hat (and an STD) at the mall, we were saving it for the weekend. Platinum Dunes is teaming up with Hasbro to bring the board game, Ouija Board, to so many theaters you won’t escape it! Michael Bay is involved in a producing capacity, so don’t count out day-glo Rasta phantasms with Uzis just yet. Gotta love how the trades are all, “no log line has been announced.” But they partially redeem themselves by reporting that the film will “not be like Jumanji.”
The flick will [...]

Robert Rodriguez always has like five projects going at the same time. He’s been hard at work “developing” Barbarella (or trying to convince the studio to give him the money to make it with his future wife Rose McGowan in the lead) and just announced a TV show called Women In Chains (also starring Rose McGowan), which he’s pitching to various networks, but his next feature film to go into production will be… drumroll please…
Shorts is a family comedy adventure that follows an 11-year-old boy who is hit in the head with a rainbow-colored rock that grants wishes to anyone who holds it. Chaos erupts in this small suburb where [...]

Emily the Strange was created by Santa Cruz skateboarder Rob Reger in the early 1990’s to help promote his company Cosmic Debris Etc. Inc. Before becoming a cult counterculture icon, Emily began on a sticker that was passed out for free at concerts, record stores and skate shops to help promote Cosmic Debris. I give you this back story because I think it’s very important to establish that Emily The Strange will be the first movie ever to be adapted from a sticker. And I remember a few years back when people thought it was strange that DreamWorks was making a movie out of a line of action figures.
The character [...]