Haffleck: Jon Hamm and Rebecca Hall have joined The Town, the adaptation of Chuck Hogan’s novel Prince of Thieves. Ben Affleck will direct and star, as a bank robber who falls in love with a teller (Hall); Hamm will play an FBI agent tracking down Affleck’s crew. The Town will start shooting in Boston in September, after Hamm wraps the third season of some show called Mad Men. [HR]
Presidential Humor: Richard Linklater’s next movie may be Liars (A-E), a romantic comedy about a woman who, on her way to Obama’s inauguration, stops to pick up lost items from an ex-boyfriend. Let’s hope one of those items is Wiley Wiggins. [Variety]
Coach: ESPN’s Films-Motion Pictures and NFL Films will co-produce Lombardi, a hard-hitting sports movie that will focus on the legend’s rivalry with Cowboy’s coach Tom Landry and that will supposedly be similar in tone to Raging Bull. The movie is scheduled for release the weekend before the 2011 Super Bowl, in a move that ESPN’s Ron Semiao hopes becomes a trend, giving “an answer to all those people asking, ‘What am I going to do until the Super Bowl starts?’ †All those people for whom “continue living my life exactly as before†is not a valid response, of course. [Variety]
Hopefully Funny People: Ron Livingston, Jim Gaffigan, and Rob Riggle have joined the cast of crappy-sounding Drew Barrymore–Justin Long rom-com Going the Distance. Jason Sudeikis was previously cast in this one, so we’re starting to think the producers have a bet going — how many legitimately funny people can we render hopelessly unfunny in one movie? [Variety]
Ted Directs: How I Met Your Mother’s Josh Radnor will make his directorial debut on HappyThankYouMorePlease, a film he also wrote and will star in. The movie, about a group of New Yorkers (including Malin Akerman, Richard Jenkins, Zoe Kazan, Pablo Schreiber, and Tony Hale) struggling with growing up, has wrapped shooting and is now in the editing phase. Considering John Krasinski’s Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, we just need one more harmlessly likable lead in a successful sitcom to surprisingly direct a feature, and we’ve got ourselves a trend. [Variety]