Universal has picked comedy troupe Broken Lizard’s latest screenplay Rogue Scholars as well as a second, unnamed project. The studio has agreed to co-finance the scripts with the Motion Picture Corporation of America through its studio feature film investment fund.

It’s a good movie for Universal. Both projects are being described as “low budget,” so there is not much investment on their part. And while Broken Lizard’s films have never set the box office on fire, the group has a loyal fan base which fuels strong home video sales.

Rogue Scholars will see the five members of Broken Lizard – Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter and Erik Stolhanske – as five goofy college professors who run afoul of both the students and the administration. When I chatted with Heffernan and Lemme back in December he described the script as “a reverse Animal House.”

While everyone is being tight-lipped about the title of the deal’s second script, we can make a couple of guesses about what it may or may not be. The project that their fans are looking forward to the most is probably a sequel to their biggest Super Troopers. And while the group has stated that they are working on a script for a sequel, Super Troopers was released by Fox Searchlight so presumably they have first dibs on the sequel. Likewise, their script The Babymaker, in which Heffernan would play a man who recruits his friends to break into a sperm bank to steal back some donations he made years previously in order to get his wife pregnant, is currently in development at Warner Brothers. Another project they have talked about for some time is The Greek Road, in which Heffernan and Lemme would play Greek philosophers Plato and Socrates on a road trip being interfered with by the Gods, portrayed by the other three members of the group. What makes it doubtful that this could be the mysterious second film is that Greek Road had previously been passed on by Warner Brothers who felt that the film was a too expensive for their tastes.

That does leave two possible known projects that this mystery second film could be. The first is Pot Fest, first promised at the end of the group’s 2006 Beerfest. The second is a script about a former NFL linebacker called Nutcracker. The group has already shown the script to their Slammin’ Salmon co-star Michael Clarke Duncan who liked the script. Lemme told me back in December that the group and Duncan are currently looking for a way to put the project together. Could this be it?

Via The Hollywood Reporter.

1. Cop Out (Warner Brothers, 3,150 Theaters, 107 Minutes, Rated R): Granted, Kevin Smith is a writer/director, but the emphasis has always been on the “writer.” By his own admission, his directing skills have always lagged behind his wordsmith ones.

And yet, here he is, directing a film that he didn’t write. I have no idea what the true job of a director is and what Smith can bring to it, but surely no one who has ever heard his self-deprecating view toward his directing abilities would ever rush out and see any movie he exclusively directs.

The film is somewhat up his alley. The plot concerns two cops in pursuit of a stolen baseball card. Along the way, they meet up with a mobster who is a rabid collector and Seann William Scott.

2.The Crazies (Overture Films, 2,476 Theaters, 101 Minutes, Rated R): If you think this film looks like a rip-off of a George Romero Zombie flick with people turning psychotic instead of the living dead, well, you’re not far off.

The film is a remake of a 1973 film written and directed by Romero. So they are ripping off Romero in a way, but he actually ripped himself off first.  

A tainted water supply has infected certain members of a small town with a deadly virus that causes them to become homicidal. The sheriff tries to make heads or tales out of what is going on while trying to keep the last remaining unaffected people safe and alive.

So, this, I guess , is a zombie movie for people who like zombie movies but want a break from them without going too far away from the genre. 

Music has always been a good way to help a film evoke the time period in which it is set. Next month’s comedy Hot Tub Time Machine – in which John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson and Clark Duke find themselves in 1986 after a drunken dip in the titular tub – is set to feature some great tunes from the decade that gave us the Brat Pack, Reaganomics and skinny ties.

Entertainment Weekly managed to get the film’s director Steve Pink to spill on some of the tracks that will grace the film’s soundtrack and it reads like a good overview of the middle of the decades pop charts. Here are the artists that Pink

• Salt ‘N Pepa’s “Push It,”
• New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle,”
• David Bowie’s “Modern Love,”
• Scritti Politti’s “Perfect Way,”
• Men Without Hats’ “The Safety Dance,”
• “Save It For Later” by the English Beat

Additionally, the film’s red band trailer also featured INXS’s “What You Need” and Dead Or Alive’s “You Spin Me (Round Like A Record),” though that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll be in the finished film. Musicologists, of course, will point out that “Push It” was actually released in March 1987 and “Bizarre Love Triangle,” barely squeeks in to 1986, having been released in November. But does such an anachronism really take the average movie-goer out of a film? Probably not, especially if the movie is as entertaining as Hot Tub Time Machine‘s trailers are promising. We’ll find out March 26th.

Say what you will about the British press – And believe me, there is a lot of negative to be said, especially when it comes to their tabloids – when a major film starts shooting in Great Britain, they are usually the ones who have the first pictures of the production. So it is again with director John Landis’ dark comedy Burke And Hare, currently shooting in Edinburgh, Scotland, thanks to the Edinburgh Evening Standard and the Daily Mail. The two papers have published a pair of photos each of stars Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis in the the film’s title roles as two 19th century grave robbers who sold freshly (and illegally) exhumed cadavers to doctors and medical students. Isla Fisher, Jessica Hynes (Pegg’s former co-star on the British series Spaced) , Tom Wilkinson, Hugh Bonneville, Tim Curry and Sir Christopher Lee co-star.

When Ben Stiller’s male fashion model comedy Zoolander came out in 2001, I felt I was in the minority for liking the film. While it received mixed reviews, no one I talked to seemed to have liked the film. Personally, I loved it. It felt like a throwback to Stiller’s short-lived and under-appreciated Fox sketch series The Ben Stiller Show.

But over the years, Zoolander seems to have built up an audience of fans to the point that it is starting to look like a sequel, something which Stiller has been talking about for a while, is coming together. Deadline Hollywood is reporting that Stiller is re-teaming with his Tropic Thunder co-writer Justin Theroux to draft a Zoolander sequel. Additionally, Theroux, who also scripted this summer’s Iron Man 2,will also direct the film. The ubiquitous Jonah Hill is in talks for the villain of the piece.

Looking over Theroux’s resume, he certainly appears to be a bit of a Hollywood chameleon. As actor, he has done quirky comedy films like Strangers With Candy, The Baxter (both 2005) and The Ten (2007) and more dramatic fare like American Psycho (2000), Miami Vice (2006) and David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001) and Inland Empire (2006). And while Iron Man 2 and Tropic Thunder are his only two produced screenplay credit, that’s still pretty diverse.

Reportedly, Paramount wants to keep the film in the roughly $50 million range in terms of its budget. This is a prudent move on the studio’s part, as the original only earned $45 million at the box office. While it has gained a following on DVD over the last eight years, Zoolander hit theaters just a two weeks after the tragedy of 9/11 and it is possible that a New York City-set comedy was not what people wanted to see in theaters at the time.

Last fall, we reported that Shane Black was the latest screenwriter to make an attempt at scripting a big screen adaptation of the classic pulp hero Doc Savage. Now, Variety is reporting that Black will be assuming directorial duties on the project as well. The Variety story also states that Black, who created the Lethal Weapon franchise, is working on the script with writers Anthony Bagarozzi and Chuck Mondry. The story will be an original adventure and not an adaptation of one of the 181 novels written mostly by Lester Dent and published by Simon and Street between 1933 and 1949 under the pseudonym of Kenneth Robeson. Neal Moritz and Ori Marmur, who are also spearheading the upcoming old-time radio hero Green Hornet feature with Seth Rogen, are producing for Columbia Pictures.

Black is an interesting choice, both as writer and director. With a writing resume that stretches from the light-hearted adventure The Monster Squad to the noir-ish The Long Kiss Goodnight, he certainly has the writing chops for the material. Although it wasn’t widely distributed, his 2005 debut film as a director, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang starring Robert Downey Jr., received positive reviews. Additionally, Variety states that Black has a vast collection of detective books and pulp fiction, which should definitely give him an idea of the appropriate tone for the film.

A previous film attempt in 1975 from producer George Pal starred Ron Ely as Doc. While the casting of Doc and his five aides was pretty good, the story itself attempted to cash in on the already faded craze for camp started by the late 60s Batman television series. Needless to say, it was a flop.

It seems as if it is a good time to be a Doc Savage fan. (And I am.) In addition to this film project rolling forward, the pulp hero and his team of adventurers will be starring in not one, but two comic book series from DC Comics in the upcoming months and his original pulp adventures are being reprinted by Nostalgia Ventures/ Sanctum Books.

Is their latest mission from God taking them back to the medium that spawned them?

According to Undercover, John Belushi’s widow Jane Belushi Pisano is spearheading an attempt to get the Blues Brothers back on to television in their own series. Working with former original Saturday Night Live writer Anne Beattes and Wayne Catania and Kieron Lafferty, the current stars of the officially sanctioned Blues Brother Review tour, she states that she has been developing a new television series which would see the classic musician characters created by her late husband and partner Dan Aykroyd. “The way we have scripted it over 6 to 8 shows where they are on a mission down the Mississippi back to New Orleans.”

While a Blues Brothers project without Belushi may sound like sacrilege to some fans (see Blues Brothers 2000), Belushi Pisano doesn’t have a problem with new actors sliding on the sunglasses and porkpie hats.

They are great American characters. People tend to think of them as John and Dan. They were the first actors to do it but they won’t be the last. When you see Kieran and Wayne you will see how they embody those characters and make them work. There is a spirit of Blues Brothers. It is an umbrella for the Blues.

A Blues Brothers television series doesn’t sound as far-fetched as it initially sounds. The musical Glee has been a surprise hit for Fox, and I have to confess that I’m surprised we haven’t already heard of other knock-off musical shows being developed by other networks. Of course, there are numerous hurtles to leap before we start setting our DVRs for this. For one, there is no mention of Aykroyd’s involvement in, or at least approval for, the project and I would think that would be needed.

Also, it sounds as if the project is in its very early days and that they haven’t shopped it around to the networks yet. Personally, it sounds like it might be a better fit for a cable network like HBO or Showtime rather than the over-the-air broadcast networks who are hampered by the FCC in what language they can use.

Via Blues Brothers Central.

Captain Jack Sparrow is going to have some company on the high seas of the Caribbean. Ian McShane is currently in talks to sign on to Pirates Of The Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides. McShane will be starring opposite a returning Johnny Depp as Captain Jack’s nemesis, the pirate Blackbeard, better known to history as Edward Teach.

Since we know that the plot of Pirates 4, adapted from Tim Powers’ pirate novel On Stranger Tidesby previous Pirates scripters Terry Rossio and Ted Elliot, deals with the Fountain of Youth, it is safe to assume that some liberties will be taken with the historical facts of Teach’s career as a pirate between 1716 and 1719 in the waters of the West Indies as captain of the ship Queen Anne’s Revenge. Will we McShane with burning fuses tied into his hair as the real Blackbeard reportedly did?

The last major piece of the Green Lantern casting piece was unveiled yesterday, when Green Lantern comics writer Geoff Johns tweeted that Sherlock Holmes bad guy Mark Strong has been cast as the titular hero’s mentor-turned-nemesis Sinestro. Johns had been visiting the set as part of his new duties as DC Comics’ Chief Creative Officer, a position that in addition to overseeing the creative direction of DC’s comics line, also has him consulting with moviemakers about translating the company’s characters from the page to the big screen.

Johns had been on a quick trip down to New Orleans, where principal photography is set to start on Green Lantern in a couple of weeks. Apparently, he was pleased with what he has saw there, as he also tweeted “Kilowog, the Guardians, Oa…all breathtaking. The age of Green Lantern is upon us!!”

DC Entertainment’s announcement of Johns appointment to the newly created post of Chief Creative Officer last week was a great move on the part of new president Diane Nelson. Johns has been writing for the company’s various titles for over a decade now and has been praised by fans and critics for his strong sense of the histories of the characters he handles. Previously, Johns worked as an assistant to Superman: The Movie director Richard Donner. Additionally, Johns has contributed two scripts to recent seasons of the Clark Kent-before-he’s-Superman television series Smallville, which many have called the best that the series has done in recent years.

If last night’s Olympic victory of Team USA over Canada wasn’t enough hockey news for you, here’s some more.

Writer/director Kevin Smith has cast Seann William Scott in his upcoming hockey movie Hit Somebody. Scott will play Buddy, a hockey team’s enforcer who longs to score just one goal in his career. Smith’s script is based on the Warren Zevon song with lyrics written by Mitch Albom.

Williams got the job after working with Smith on the upcoming Cop Out-

Seann, for me, was the key into the character. I had all the elements in place, and the one thing I was missing was the personality. Generally I like to write to a voice, but I didn’t know who that voice was or what that voice could be. And then after spending all the time with Seann on this movie, he’s pitch perfect. He is that guy… This dude has something in him that you can just see hangs so well on Buddy. He’s got some pain that’s going to work out well. More importantly he has so much love in his heart. Seann Scott is such an ebullient, happy person who’s just happy to be there. And on (Cop Out) you could see it. On our set the guy is just so delighted to be working, to be making people laugh. But he’s always dismissed as Stifler. … This is his chance to shine.

I have to agree that Scott has not been able to break out from the comedy roles he’s played in films like The Dukes Of Hazard and Role Models. Even his appearances in action films like The Rundown and Bulletproof Monk have been tinged with comedy. Hopefully, we’ll get to see on the screen what Smith is seeing in the actor.

Previously, Scott had worked with Smith on Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back.

Via NFL.com.