Hill Moving Up: Jonah Hill is staying busy: He recently completed shooting on Get Him to the Greek and an untitled comedy from Jay and Mark Duplass, and continues work on The Adventurer’s Handbook. He’s now also set to star in The Best Thing About Pam Rooney, to be scripted by fellow Apatow acolytes Andrew Jay Cohen and Brendan O’Brien. There are no plot details available for the high-concept comedy, although it is known that all three principal players have beards. [Variety]
Back to Fox: While God knows what happens with the Arrested Development movie, three of the show’s staff are moving on to another Fox comedy. The untitled show will be written by Mitch Hurwitz, Will Arnett, and AD’s co-executive-producer Jim Vallely, and will star Arnett as a rich Bevery Hills jackass who falls in love with a socially conscious woman who is his exact opposite. You had us at “Will Arnett as jackass.†[HR]
Payne-Ful: Alexander Payne has decided to hold off on his planned next feature, Downsizing, starring Paul Giamatti and Sacha Baron Cohen, in favor of an adaptation of Kaui Hart Hemmings’s novel The Descendants. The dramedy, set in Hawaii, revolves around a rich guy taking his two daughters on a search for his wife’s lover. Apparently Payne wanted to shoot this one first in order to give Downsizing more production time, so fully expect The Descendents to be totally half-assed. [Variety]
Sex Buffet: Harold & Kumar creators Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg will direct One Night Stan, a comedy scripted by relative newcomer Josh Friedlander. The plot revolves around the title protagonist finding out his fiancée has had more sexual partners than he; she then gives him a pass for one night to try to catch up. Surprise! Things go horribly wrong. Whatever else happens, this project is already worth it just for giving The Hollywood Reporter the opportunity to coin the phrase “sex buffet.†[HR]
Hank: 821 Entertainment Group and Strike Entertainment is teaming up on a Hank Williams biopic, which comes with the blessings of both Hank Williams Jr. and Jr.’s estranged sibling Jett Williams, the country legend’s daughter, born days after he died. The movie will trace Williams’s rise from a poverty-stricken childhood in Alabama during the Great Depression to his success on the charts to his battling of spina bifida with morphine and alcohol, and finally to his unfortunate death at age 29. The project will get going just as soon as Joaquin Phoenix stops being crazy. [Variety]
Crazy For You: Half-Nelson’s Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden will write and direct It’s Kind of a Funny Story, an adaptation of Ned Vizzini’s young-adult novel. The plot revolves around a depressed 15-year-old named Craig who checks himself into a psychiatric hospital and is placed in the adult ward, where he has colorful interactions with his fellow patients and a girl his own age. [HR]