Strong Safety: Danny McBride will co-write and star in the adaptation of graphic novel Hench. McBride, who’ll write the screenplay with Shawn Harwell, will play a football player, forced by injuries to retire, who becomes a henchman for a successful villain. Danny McBride as a former athlete again? At least he won’t have to pretend to know how to pitch this time. [Variety]
Mark Your Calendars: The first movie in Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson’s much-discussed Tintin series has a release date: Spielberg’s effort, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, will be out December 23, 2011. As previously announced, Jamie Bell stars as Tintin, Daniel Craig plays the villain Red Rackham, and Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Toby Jones round out the cast. Anyway, that means you have, like, two and a half years to read all the books. [HR]
Late-Night Ladies’ Man: Tim Meadows is set to host the late-night series The Very Funny Show for TBS. The show will be shot during the Just for Laughs festival, also being aired by TBS, at Zanies Comedy Club in Chicago, and will feature stand-up sets by the likes of Bob Marley, Dwight Slade, and Steve Byrne; ten half-hour episodes will run in November. TimTV>FrankTV. [Variety]
Pirate Movie: You probably won’t believe this, but Hollywood is gonna make a movie based on that whole Somalian pirates thing. Columbia Pictures has acquired Captain Richard Phillips’s life rights and will tell the story of the hijacking and rescue operation of the Maersk Alabama in a flick produced by Scott Rudin, Michael De Luca, Kevin Spacey, and Dana Brunetti. We bet Sully is sooo pissed right now. [HR]
He’s Back: Paul Verhoeven is coming back to America with The Surrogate. The director’s last film, the World War II thriller Black Book, was made in his native Netherlands, and was critically acclaimed, setting the stage for his Hollywood return. His new project, based on the 2004 book by Kathryn Mackel, revolves around a couple who find out the surrogate carrying their child is insane. Hopefully Bruce Willis can extend his impressive streak of starring in movies with some variation of the word “surrogate†in their titles and land the title role here. [HR]
Wrecks: The battle of irresponsible car-accident TV shows is over, and ABC has won: the network is scheduling Crash Course for a late-summer run. CBS originally had a similarly themed horrific–car-crash show, Thunder Road, in the works, but has apparently dropped it, meaning Crash Course will be the only place where you can see people driving through fake flash floods and burning walls this summer. Also, other than your Veronica’s Closet DVD box set, it will be the only place where you can see Crash Course host Dan Cortese this summer. [HR]