Director Hires: Tim Story For 'Think Like A Man;' Anthony Mandler For Zac Efron Film 'Die In A Gunfight'

Fantastic Four and Barbershop director Tim Story is going back to work after not having a film on big screens since the 2009 picture Hurricane Season. He'll direct Kevin Hart in Think Like a Man, which is based on Steve Harvey's book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy and Commitment. Mr. Hart will be "a self-professed relationship expert who is quick to give advice to his crew of friends, even as his own marriage heads toward divorce." The book has sold well, but I expect this will draw a different crowd from either Tim Story's Fantastic Four films or Hurricane Season. [Deadline]

After the break, a man has been hired to make Zac Efron Die in a Gunfight. Who will rejoice?

We've heard a bit about Die in a Gunfight, to which Zac Efron has been attached for a little while. Now photographer and music video director Anthony Mandler has been set to direct; he's also attached to the Summit film Vlad, the studio's 'action-oriented' take on Dracula.

Between the two, I'll take Die in a Gunfight, which is based on a Black List script and is about "a fight-prone and death-obsessed young society man who pursues a romance with the daughter of his father's enemy." Zac Efron is still poised to possibly become a strong young actor, and I'm eager to see him take roles that break him out of teenybopper heartthrob status. He's started that process already; could this be another step along the mature career path? [Deadline]

Bouncing back to Think Like a Man for a moment, here's a recap of the book:

Steve Harvey doesn't have the bona fides typical to most women's relationship self-help, but he still manages a thorough, witty guide to the modern man. Harvey undertakes the tast because "Women are clueless about men," because "Men get away with a whole lot of stuff" and because he has "some valuable information to change all of that." Harvey makes a game effort, taking a bold but familiar men-are-dogs approach: if you're "cutting back" on sex, "he will have another woman lined up and waiting to give him what he needs and wants–the cookie." Several chapters later, however, he introduces the "ninety-day rule," asserting that, actually, he won't always have another woman lined up–and the only way to makes sure is a three-month vetting period. Harvey also tackles mama's boys, "independent–and lonely–women," and the matter of children in the dating world ("If he's meeting the kids after you decide he's the one, it's too late"). Feminists and the easily offended probably won't take to Harvey's blanket statements and blunt advice, but Harvey's fans and those in need of tough (but ticklish) love advice should check it out