The Slate: Steve Carell is Drinking, Playing, F@#king

• Steve Carell is having a bit of a turn. Warners is tooling Andrew Gottlieb’s novel Drink, Play, F@#k into a vehicle for the comic actor. (It’ll be called the more marquee-friendly Dumped). Intended as a riposte to Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love, the book finds the strait-laced Bob Sullivan in a hedonistic free-fall through Ireland, Las Vegas and Thailand after his wife walks out. Sounds like a Yes Man with more swearing and Carell screaming “Britney Spears!” for all the wrong reasons. My Sassy Girl scripter Victor Levin will be finding the humor in the situation. (Variety)
• Jonah Hex? Yes, that’s a rhetorical question. We’ve never read the comic about a scarred gunslinger and the only thing that’s exciting about a movie version is the possibility of a credible Western hitting the screens again. Oh, and a cast that includes Josh Brolin as ol’ melty lips, Megan Fox as some totty and John Malkovich as a voodoo enthusiast. They’ve been joined by the estimable Will Arnett as Hex’s pay-master and Michael Shannon as a ringmaster of the undead. So much for “credible.” But with Horton Hears a Who‘s Jimmy Hayward directing, maybe this will turn out to be an horror oater worth putting a feed bag on for. (Hollywood Reporter)
• Kevin MacDonald‘s The Eagle of the Ninth is finding some centurions to strap on their sandals. Billy Elliott‘s Jamie Bell will co-star in the story of a Roman warrior and his Celtic sidekick searching for a legion stranded in the Highlands. Channing Tatum is negotiating to join Bell as the one not smeared in wode. Here’s hoping whoever adapts adapting Rosemary Sutcliff ‘s book for the screen will throw in a reel or two. (Variety)
• Supermarket tabloids will get a chance to scream “Is it ON again?!” as exes Drew Barrymore and Justin Long spend a few months in close quarters. Well, maybe not that close. Barrymore has signed on to join Long in Going the Distance, a rom-com about a couple trying to enduring the travails of a long distance relationship. Should give new meaning to phoning in a performance. Barrylong split in July 2008. (Variety)
• Ice Cube used to be the N*gga You Love to Hate. Now he’s just “that guy.” He’s starring in Ride Along, an action comedy where his cop tries to ruin the relationship between his sister and her white boyfriend by taking him on patrol. This is a “comedy”? Ice Cube is doing a rewrite … hopefully to make it a little less like Unlawful Entry comes to Lakeview Terrace. (Variety)

The Slate: Green Lantern and Dark Shadows are Going the Distance

• Turns out Green Lantern is a go! The green DC superhero who isn’t Green Arrow (or The Riddler if you’re short-sighted) will be brought to the screen by Casino Royale director Martin Campbell. According to producer Donald De Line, locations are being scouted in Melbourne and Sydney and shooting is due to begin in mid-September. Previously mooted as Hal Jordan: Jack Black (back when the film was a comedy), Anton Yelchin, Chris Pine and … that’s it. More news once our power ring recharges. (Dark Horizons)
• Sign of a slow news day: the Internet is quivering over the news that Tim Burton may not begin shooting the Dark Shadows movie with Johnny Depp this summer. He might have to wait until … this fall! Can we possibly do without our Barnabas Collins fix for a few more months? Actually, yes. The production has been delayed because Burton is still slaving on Alice in Wonderland, footage of which drew audible gasps of wonderlandishness at a recent Disney/DreamWorks shareholders confab. Work faster, Burton, work faster! To hell with quality! Depp is due to begin shooting The Rum Diaries on schedule at the end of the month. (Deadline Hollywood Daily)
• Tommy Lee Jones and Kevin Costner are joining Ben Affleck in John Wells’ The Company Men. The film will be a fascinating exploration in the effects of petrification on three Hollywood actors in the guise of a drama about corporate downsizing. Because there’s nothing unemployed people like better than watching films about unemployed people. Affleck is the laid-off high-flyer who crashes to earth at Costner and Jones’ laconic construction firm. (Variety)
• The latest film from the team behind Takenhas been picked up for release by Lionsgate. From Paris With Love finds John Travolta “hooking up” with Jonathan Rhys Meyers. It’s a thriller, natch, with Travolta’s special agent and Meyers’ innocent embassy employee fighting terrorists and, if screenwriter Luc Besson has anything to do with it, engaging in some inappropriate Gallic slapstick. The film, directed by Taken‘s Pierre Morel, is due to open Feb. 19, 2010. (Variety)
• The resistible rise of the Mac mensch continues. Justin Long has signed to star in Going the Distance, a romantic comedy about a long-distance relationship that’s been stretched to breaking point. Long will play the man who realizes he’d rather date somebody who lives around the corner. Expect lots of Skype product placement and Facebook gags. (Variety)

Tribeca: But Wait! There’s More!

Poor Tribeca International Film Festival. They release their slate to great fanfare and all they get are a bunch of people saying that the recession has made movie-going no fun and another handful of cineastes wondering how to fill up the last two weeks in April. So they’ve decided to toss out a few more feature-length bones to remind us that watching Uzbek animation and Ben Lyons being ushered to the front of the line can be a wonderful thing. If not quite as wonderful as ice cream. The new line-up includes films from Steven Soderbergh, Eric Bana, and Cheryl Hines; a star turn from John Hurt and a woman who has done oral; a biting British satire; and two trawls through the nether world of New York film-making. More after the jump!

Trailer Rash: Alison Lohman is “Hell”-Bound

If Squally was the kind of person who took baths in asses milk and had a lot of money to throw around, he would not have put money on Sam Raimi making another horror movie. Been there, done that, y’know? And The Gift, Billy Bob Thornton’s memoir of psychic shenanigans down South, only lingered in the mind for Katie Holmes‘s bodacious ta-tas. But the prospect of following the unholy mess that was Spider-Man 3 made Raimi consider flexing some old muscles again. Which brings us Drag Me to Hell, whose trailer premiered online today. The film opens on May 29.

The initial response is one of “they can’t be serious,” along with an appreciation for the film’s ability to measure the anxiety of the times. Alison Lohman is a bank loan officer who, tired of being passed up for promotion, decides to show she can play with the big boys and foreclose on a gypsy woman’s house. Gypsy woman does not take kindly to this. We’ve all imagined bankers roasting in hell and lawyers lying in the bottom of the ocean. But this is one Romany who has the supernatural mojo to make those fantasies a reality. Soon Lohman is munching on flies and looking for help from a psychic.