Easy Does It: A bunch more actors have been announced for the high-school set, Emma Stone–starring, quasi–Scarlet Letter adaptation Easy A, including Lisa Kudrow, Thomas Haden Church, Patricia Clarkson, Stanley Tucci, Penn Badgley, Cam Gigandet, and Malcolm McDowell. Which means that, just like the rest of us, Hollywood is clearly asking itself “What Would Amanda Bynes Do?†[Variety]
Don’t You Forget About Me: Pierce Brosnan, Chris Cooper, and Emilie de Ravin (Claire from Lost) have joined the Robert Pattinson drama Remember Me. Brosnan plays the father to Pattinson’s character, who is traumatized by his brother’s suicide; de Ravin plays a woman who witnesses her mother’s murder and chooses to “live life to the fullest.†We sure hope de Ravin’s up for it after spending all last year in the jungle somewhere with Christian under very mysterious circumstances. [Variety]
Beast News I: Mary-Kate Olsen and Alex Pettyfer have joined Vanessa Hudgens in the cast for the teen flick Beastly. Based on Alex Flinn’s novel adapting Beauty and the Beast to modern-day New York, it features Olsen as a woman who puts a curse on the cocksure Pettyfer, turning him into a monster, we guess, to teach him a thing or two. [Variety]
Beast News II: A&E’s The Beast, starring Patrick Swayze as a rogue FBI agent in Chicago, has been canceled. The show was probably best known for Swayze having shot it while being treated for pancreatic cancer, meaning he might have opted not to return for a second season, anyway. Some had assumed that Lou Diamond Phillips might take over, after he guest starred in episode seven, although Variety’s sources say he was never considered. Either way, we definitely dodged an LDP bullet. [Variety]
Paaaaarty: Terrence Howard and Radical Media are developing the TV project Pigs and Panthers. The show will tell the story of LAPD cop Ronald Farwell, who went undercover in the Black Panthers during the sixties and seventies, and found himself “on the wrong side of the Black Panther Party, the FBI and the LAPD itself.†As far as sides go, it sounds like the man did not have many options. [Variety]
Drake Gets Paid: Universal Motown is apparently the front-runner in the bidding war — “one of the biggest bidding wars ever,†says some surely not at-all-excitable Billboard source — over the up-and-coming Drake, currently affiliated with Lil Wayne’s Young Money and managed by Hip Hop Since 1978. See what nabbing Vulture’s highly coveted Biggest Gainer title can do to a career? [Billboard]