Sorry, No Pancakes: James Marsden has joined Russell Brand’s voice in the cast of the live action/CG-hybrid I Hop. Directed by Tim Hill, the man behind Alvin and the Chimpmunks, I Hop follows a slacker (Marsden) who accidentally injures the Easter Bunny (Brand’s voice) and must take him in as he recovers. Then it turns into the 2010 version of the Odd Couple, with poker-playing old guys replaced by a lazy twentysomething and an imaginary rabbit. [THR]
Ah Hell: Samuel L. Jackson and Josh Duhamel will star as humans caught in between a battle pitting heaven against hell in Sympathy for the Devil, a new insane sounding movie from M Global Octane. It will be directed by Boaz Yakin, who helmed Remember the Titans, and feature “a cosmic confrontation between Heaven and Hell, where angels are warriors as dangerous as demons.†Samuel L. Jackson, of course, is the most dangerous. [Latino Review]
XXX: Three years after their last album, the New Pornographers will put out their fifth studio release on May 4. The album includes nine A.C. Newman songs and three Dan Bejar songs played by all of the band’s eight members, which leaves them only one person short of being able to form a team for the indie-rock softball league. [Matador]
Death Train: Director Olatunde Osunsanmi has signed on to sit in the folding chair for the action-thriller The Commuter. The film will focus on man’s deadly commute home from work in New York City. The reason why it’s deadly? He keeps nodding off hitting his head against the window. [Variety]
Sister Act: Joanna Garcia, who recently starred in Privileged, will star in ABC’s upcoming comedy from Friends vet Shana Goldberg-Meehan. The show is about a pair of sisters, one of whom is in a happy relationship with a man who won’t marry her and another who unexpectedly gets pregnant and marries her boyfriend. Seems like they should just swap. [THR]