Lunch Lady Land: Amy Poehler will star in the adaptation of the as-yet unpublished Lunch Lady series, a graphic novel for children about a cafeteria employee who leads a double life as a do-gooder, righting wrongs and solving mysteries along with a team of assistants. Lunch Lady and the League of Librarians and Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute are coming out this summer, with two more confirmed titles eventually following. This is great news, as we’ve always thought Amy Poehler would look foxy in a hair net. [HR]
More Mamet: The L.A. production of David Mamet’s Oleana — starring Julia Stiles as a college student and Bill Pullman as a professor who engages with her in a “battle-of-the-sexes confrontation†— may move to Broadway this fall. The play, which premiered in Boston in 1992, would be the second Mamet production on Broadway, alongside the debut of the upcoming Race. This is shaping up to be even better than The Prince & Me! [Variety]
Murphy Bed: Brittany Murphy will star in the Darin Scott–directed thriller Something Wicked, about a couple whose lives are upended when the girl’s parents are killed. It also says the girl is way out of the guy’s league, a plot detail we just cannot figure out the relevancy of, and therefore applaud mightily. [HR]
Killer Cunningham: Author Michael Cunningham (The Hours) has sold his script for the thriller Beautiful Girl to Screen Gems. The plot revolves around a girl who comes back for her senior year of high school remarkably slimmed-down and begins a flirtation with the English-lit teacher; all goes to hell when the teacher feels the need to take revenge on all the people who were mean to the girl before her transformation. Apparently Cunningham is a “huge genre fan… [who] would argue such basics as whether the second Hostel was as good as the first one.†[Variety]
Fela! Moving: Fela!, the Off Broadway bio-musical about Fela Kuti, is transferring to Broadway in the Fall. The play follows Kuti’s career as a world-music pioneer and activist fighting against the corrupt government of post-colonial Nigeria; Sahr Ngaujah, the original Kuti, will come with the production to Broadway. Jay-Z did it! [Variety]
Crashed: Eric Roberts has joined the cast of Crash for its second season, playing an entrepreneur hoping to bring a pro-football team to L.A. Yes, that show got a second season. Yes, Eric Roberts is still acting. [Variety]