Former Veronica Mars star Kristen Bell has been tapped for a lead role opposite Don Cheadle in Showtime’s dark comedy pilot House of Lies. Written by Matthew Carnahan based on the book by Martin Kihn, the project centers on Marty (Cheadle), a self-loathing highly successful management consultant from a top-tier firm…

EXCLUSIVE: Joaquin Phoenix is the front-runner to play the mentor who teaches the 16th President how to kill bloodsuckers in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter for 20th Century Fox. Phoenix has met on the project and I’m told that it’s his if he wants it. He would join Benjamin Walker, who last Thursday was set to play…

QED has packaged an adaptation of I, Alex Cross, the James Patterson novel that is essentially a reboot of the James Patterson mystery series that starred Morgan Freeman as the detective/psychologist based in D.C. Tyler Perry will headline this version, and Rob Cohen will direct. Distributors are circling the project…

Teri Polo and Mather Zickel have landed co-starring roles on the ABC comedy pilot Man Up!. The project, from 100 Questions creator Chris Moynihan, ABC Studios and Tagline, is a look at what it takes to survive as a modern man, as told through the eyes of three best friends and the women in their lives. Moynihan and…

New ABC Family president Michael Riley is making his first new series pickups today, ordering 3 new shows, the Raven Symone comedy The Great State of Georgia and 2 dramas, The Nine Lives of Chloe King and Switched at Birth. The orders to all 3 are for 10 episodes, including the pilot. The Great State of Georgia,…

With Charlie Sheen in rehab, the focus is shifting to the aftermath of his departure from the hit CBS show. Luckily (and sadly), CBS and the series producers from Warner Bros TV have been down that road before with Sheen’s month-long stint in rehab last year, so they are dusting off the contingency plan they…

EXCLUSIVE: Oprah Winfrey’s upstart cable network OWN continued its aggressive buying at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival by acquiring North American rights to Crime After Crime, the Yoav Potash-directed documentary. I’m told the deal was six figures, and that OWN will afford the film a qualifying Oscar run before it…

Hollywood has long wanted to remake John Woo’s Hong Kong action classic The Killer and I was always kind of happy when past attempts fell apart because I’ve yet to see an assassin as cool as Chow Yun-Fat was in the  1989 original. To me, it’s almost like trying to remake The Godfather or some other sacrosanct picture…

Possibly boosted by State of the Union coverage, Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart posted its first weekly win over TBS’ Conan in adults 18-34, according to the network. Conan had a huge premiere in November, dominating the cable and broadcast late-night field for its first couple of weeks on the air…

Specialized distributor Rialto Pictures has acquired the U.S. theatrical rights to Martin Scorsese's PUBLIC SPEAKING, the director's portrait of author, social critic, and acerbic wit Fran Lebowitz. The company will open the acclaimed new documentary on February 23 at New York's Film Forum, with special engagements in…

CMT’s new sitcom, the Melissa Peterman/Ed Asner starrer Working Class, drew 1.2 million viewers and a .50 rating in adults 18-49 in its Friday premiere to rank as the highest rated and most watched series debut in the network’s history. Of course, Working Class is CMT’s first scripted series, so that means it…

New York, NY – January 31, 2011 – IMAX Corporation (NASDAQ:IMAX; TSX:IMX) today announced the pending transfer of the listing of its common stock from the NASDAQ Global Select Market ("NASDAQ") to the New York Stock Exchange ("NYSE"). The Company expects to begin trading on the NYSE on February 11, 2011, under its…