The Montecito Picture Co. has picked up OVER MY DEAD BODY from writers Michael Colton and John Aboud as a directing vehicle for Ivan Reitman. Details about the project are being kept under wraps, though it is being described as a comedic ghost story.
National Lampoon will spoof TV culture with the sketch comedy feature NATIONAL LAMPOON'S TV THE MOVIE. Sam Maccarone will direct the pic, which he co-wrote with Preston Lacy (JACKASS) and Rick Najer ("Mad TV"). Maccarone and Lacy star, with cameos by Michael Rapaport, Steve-O, Jacob Vargas, Chris Pontius, Wee Man, Mia Tyler, Clifton Collins Jr., Chad Muska and Papa Roach. Production starts May 9.
Warner Bros. has acquired screen rights to the upcoming Danny Wallace memoir YES MAN for David Heyman to produce with Black & White partners Jack Black and Mike White. David Iserson ("Saturday Night Live") will adapt. It's Wallace's account of what happened when he decided to change his life by saying yes to everything that came his way. Wallace's rewards included winning $45,000, meeting a hypnotic dog, obtaining a nursing degree and traveling the globe. There surely will be a little romance added to the movie version.
Robert Pucci has been hired to pen the script for a remake of Blake Edwards' 1962 thriller EXPERIMENT IN TERROR for Columbia Pictures and producers Lou Pitt and Matt Baer, with Edwards serving as executive producer. The original was set in San Francisco and told the story of a woman who is terrorized by a criminal using her to help him steal money from the bank where she works, threatening to kill her teenage sister if she doesn't comply. She enlists the aid of an FBI agent to thwart the criminal.
John Brownlow (SYLVIA) will write THE HERO, an original pitch, for LivePlanet and Touchstone U.K. Story concerns a British army officer who returns home for Christmas in 1916 only to find his holiday interrupted by a vengeful deserter out to kill him.
Toni Kotite and Marty Scott will write the college comedy SOCCER MOM for Karz Entertainment and Underground Films to produce for New Line Cinema. Story, based on Cindy McCreery's script, revolves around a mother of two who was a soccer star 15 years earlier and goes back to college to play on the team after her husband leaves her.
Ed Burns will write, direct and star in the indie ensemble film THE GROOMSMEN for his Marboro Road Gang Prods. and Bauer-Martinez Studios. Brittany Murphy, John Leguizamo, Jay Mohr, Jessica Capshaw, Matthew Lillard, Heather Burns, John Mahoney and Donal Logue round out the film. The story follows the misadventures and confusion of a groom and his four groomsmen the week before a wedding. Wrestling with issues of fatherhood, honesty and growing up, the five thirtysomethings discover their extended adolescence might be finally coming to a close.
Steve Pink is set to make his directorial debut on ACCEPTED for Universal Pictures. Shady Acres Entertainment is producing. The high-concept comedy centers on a teenager who finds a unique way to outsmart his parents. Adam Cooper and Bill Collage are working on a rewrite based on the original screenplay by Mark Perez.
Greg Berlanti will direct BRIDGE AND TUNNEL, a Tribeca-produced comedy about a female stock trader whose wisdom comes from a 16-year-old suburbanite using his home PC to day trade, for New Line Cinema. Jonathan Greenberg, Jonathan Lisco and C. Jay Cox penned the original script.
Alex Tanaka and Brian Gatewood will write Warner Bros.' family comedy SPEEDO, a film inspired by a Jesse Moss-directed documentary about a demolition driver. ESP and Moss will produce. The film will focus on the exploits of a drag racer who turns to demolition racing and crashes his way to modest fame on a Long Island race track. He becomes so passionate about it that he struggles to keep his family together.
Daniel Petrie Jr. will direct and produce with Rampage Entertainment the independent feature WILSON. Petrie will also produce the film with Vancouver-based Rampage Entertainment. It's a domestic supernatural thriller in the vein of POLTERGEIST and THE OTHERS. Alex Greenfield penned the script based on an original idea by his longtime collaborator Mike Eitelman, who will co-produce.
Larry Charles is in talks to replace Todd Phillips as director of the Sasha Baron Cohen comedy BORAT for Twentieth Century Fox.
James Foley is set to direct the Halle Berry psychological thriller PERFECT STRANGER for Revolution Studios. The screenplay, by Todd Komarnicki from an original script by Jon Bokenkamp, tells the story of a woman who gets caught up in the world of obsessive love and death online when she goes undercover to investigate a friend's murder.
Nick Pileggi will write and Irwin Winkler will produce A COP BETWEEN for Columbia Pictures. "A Cop Between," a fictional drama about a Gotham police officer who's drawn into the world of organized crime. Based on an idea by Pileggi, the Columbia drama will center on a cop who grows up in a mob family and joins the New York City police force. He gets seduced into compromising his integrity and badge and tries to save a childhood friend from getting murdered in a mob war.
David Elliot and Paul Lovett will write BRATS, a kids action pic for producer Jason Hoffs and DreamWorks. Pic is about a group of military brats living on a U.S. base overseas, who are forced to band together when a bad element threatens to overrun the base.
Universal and Playtone partners Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman will turn children's book series AMELIA BEDELIA into a live-action feature. Herman Parish, nephew of AMELIA creator Peggy Parish, will write the script. He has continued writing the 40-year-old series since his aunt's death in 1988. Hanks and Goetzman will produce. It's about a housekeeper whose literal interpretations of instructions left by her employers always leads to trouble. Peggy Parish was an English teacher who began writing the series in 1963 to teach young students that words aren't always meant to be taken literally.
