We’ve got another half year before our eyes, ears and funny bones get ahold of Anchorman: The Legend Continues. The highly anticipated sequel is not even finished filming — though it is close to wrapping up, with shooting moved from Atlanta to New York City this week. To further whet our appetites, and probably to give official supplement to all the set photos of cameo appearances being regularly leaked, Paramount has unveiled a new trailer for the movie. You still won’t find any footage from The Legend Continues, however. Like the teasers we got a whole year ago, this is a simple promo  featuring our four favorite newsmen saying “something fun about the movie.” Well, except for Brick, of course, who doesn’t understand what to do. Again. He gives us some advice on how to avoid being mistaken for a pedophile and wishes us a belated happy Easter. The holiday greeting is kind of fitting, though, we’ll give him that. Narrator “Bill Lawson” introduces the latest teaser talking about returned figures such as Jesus and Jay-Z. Easter pertains to the former, obviously. See, Brick isn’t dumb after all. But Ron Burgandy sure is mean. He calls us fat face. And he thinks we’re going to come see his movie after such an insult? Okay, we will. We can’t wait to hear him call us names and for Champ and Brian to intoxicate us with their alcohol breath and snake venom cologne, respectively.

What is Casting Couch? It’s back to give you another healthy dose of casting news. If you don’t like spoilers, then don’t continue forward, because we’ve got some big time spoilers concerning a couple of Anchorman 2 cameos. Craig Robinson, Rob Corddry, and Clark Duke are all ready to don their swimsuits to go for another soak in the Hot Tub Time Machine, but they have a problem. It turns out that the star of the first film, John Cusack, doesn’t want to join them. Never fear though, because The Wrap is reporting that Party Down and Parks and Recreation star Adam Scott has agreed to step into the role of the straight man for Hot Tub Time Machine 2, and he’s generally way more likable than Cusack these days anyway. What will this sequel have in store for Scott and the original crew? Will they perhaps, this time, go back in time to the 90s, so that we can get a host of jokes about slap bracelets and Zubaz pants? The head spins with possibilities.

What is Casting Couch? It’s casting news. A bunch of it. All in one place. Today we’ve got the short list of young ladies who may be playing Cinderella in Kenneth Branagh’s upcoming Disney film, among other things. People seemed to love watching Brad Pitt don military garb and do a World War II movie for Quentin Tarantino, so it stands to reason they should be willing to line up to watch him go period again for David Ayer. According to Heat Vision, the director is looking to sign the star for his upcoming WWII-set project, Fury. If he becomes official, he’ll be taking the lead role of the film, which is an ensemble piece that will follow the 5-man crew of an American tank. More specifically, it follows the 5-man crew of an American tank in the waning days of the war, as they come across a battered and desperate division of German soldiers. Ayer wrote the film and sold it to QED on spec, which is going to start to look like a smart investment on their part if a star as recognizable as Pitt becomes official.

Tonight’s edition of Movie News After Dark is a Friday free-for-all. William Shatner fights Gorn, WonderCon explodes, Ron Burgundy reproduces, we learn lessons of Westeros and I sit the Iron Throne in defiance of the North Korean threat to central Texas.

What is Casting Couch? It’s a rundown of all the casting news we missed over the weekend. Keep reading for updates on new jobs for young actors like Aml Ameen and…Nick Jonas? Squeal! Bryan Singer’s shock and awe campaign of constantly keeping X-Men: Days of Future Past in the headlines through information leaked via his Twitter account seems to be paying off. Most recently he teased us all by tweeting a picture of his casts’ head shots tacked up to a wall, a picture that ComingSoon analyzed and discovered secrets in. Turns out the pic gives us three more names who are in the movie. Not only do we now know that Daniel Cudmore, who played Colossus in X2 and The Last Stand, is coming to turn metallic and smash things again, but we also know that Twilight vet Booboo Stewart has joined the pic in an undisclosed role, and that Chinese actress Fan Bingbing will be playing the mutant teleporter Blink. Those sure are some fun names to type.

What is Casting Couch? It’s your handy roundup of news stories regarding which actors managed to land gigs over the weekend. Today we have an update on what’s going on with Guardians of the Galaxy as well as news of who gets to be Johnny Depp’s latest leading lady. Film fans have been keeping a close eye on Harrison Ford in recent weeks, just waiting for the official confirmation that he’s going to be reprising his legendary role as Han Solo in J.J. Abrams’ new Star Wars movie. Today we all got a curve ball thrown at us though. While it’s looking more and more likely that Ford will indeed be revisiting his legendary role, it also appears that he’s not done making new legends. THR is reporting that he’s now the latest name to sign on to Anchorman 2, where he’ll be playing a “legendary newscaster” who’s being likened to Tom Brokaw. Given that description, one can’t help but imagine a perfectly quaffed Ford smelling of tanned leather, scotch, and stale tobacco, and wonder if this character is going to be a rival to Will Ferrell’s Ron Burgundy, or possibly a mentor figure. Either way, it should be interesting to see Ford going for something this broadly comedic. You know, given how grumpy he is.

What is Casting Couch? It’s a compiling of all the day’s most notable casting news. Today we’ve got updates on what big book adaptations the Harry Potter kids are moving on to next, among many other things. You better sit down for this one. Ever since genre fans got that glimpse of a post-apocalyptic world where robots were in charge and humans lived in little pockets of resistance cells in James Cameron’s The Terminator, they’ve been clamoring to get a proper robot war movie. Well, that may never happen, but Matt Reeves’ upcoming Dawn of the Planet of the Apes sequel might give them the next best thing: a proper ape war. Coming Soon has word that Dawn is mostly going to be about one of these pockets of human rebels fighting against a world that’s now controlled by the apes, and perhaps most excitingly, they’ve learned that Gary Oldman has signed on to play the leader of this human resistance. This is fitting, because Oldman is so awesome he probably really would be the best guy to put in charge if super-intelligent apes tried to take over the world. He could make them back down with just the authority in his voice.

What is Casting Couch? It’s a compilation of casting news that has word of a new project for Zero Dark Thirty’s Jason Clarke as well as a look at Johnny Depp’s upcoming schedule. Read on. Bradley Cooper’s ego has gotten so big ever since he was nominated for an Oscar that he’s now decided he wants to take David Hasselhoff’s place as Germany’s favorite celebrity. According to Deadline, the Silver Linings Playbook actor has signed on to star in an English language adaptation of Kokowaah, which was Germany’s highest grossing film of 2011. The basic story here is that of a successful author and swinging bachelor who suddenly discovers he has an 8-year-old daughter from a brief fling he engaged in years ago. Cooper also has a producing credit on the film, and might even be stepping into the director’s chair to make this his directorial debut, but this is a casting report and not a feed Bradley Cooper’s ego report, so let’s move on.

What is Casting Couch? It’s your handy one stop destination for news about what all of your favorite and least favorite actors are up to next. Today we’ve got news about Anne Hathaway’s latest excuse to sing and what Adam Sandler’s next excuse to get paid to go on vacation with a beautiful actress will be. When James Marsden first caught international attention, it was as the stone-faced and charisma-free Cyclops in Bryan Singer’s first X-Men movie. People didn’t have much love for him back then. But since then he’s shown in things like Enchanted and Death at a Funeral that he’s not so bad when he’s letting his figurative hair down and getting a little goofy. That’s a good thing, because now we don’t have to meet Deadline’s report that he’s just become the latest name to join the Anchorman 2 cast with annoyed groans. Apparently Marsden will be playing Ron Burgundy’s rival news anchor, which sounds like quite a bit of fun, because Marsden can do smug pretty well.

What is Casting Couch? It’s the casting news roundup that has news about what the lovely Marion Cotillard is going to be lovelying up with her lovely self next. It seems like Bryan Singer’s plan for promoting his upcoming X-Men sequel, X-Men: Days of Future Past, is to leak a little bit of news about it on his Twitter account every day between now and when it actually gets released. The latest bone he’s throwing us is that Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage has joined his rapidly-expanding cast. What role Dinklage will be playing Singer hasn’t yet revealed, which, of course, has sent the entire Internet scrambling to see how many Marvel characters they can name that might even slightly resemble a dwarf. From obscure Canadian heroes to Captain America villains, they’ve covered them all, but nobody has yet to predict anything that makes any sense. Here’s an interesting prediction to throw out there: maybe he’s just going to play some dude? Variety, however, seems to think he’s playing the villain. 

What is Casting Couch? It’s full of casting news! Read on to find out what Charlize Theron is up to. Sean Bean was already a star on the rise before he took one of the lead roles in HBO’s Game of Thrones, but since then he’s reached a whole new level of stardom that led to the spawning of a “Sean Bean dies in everything” meme here on the Internet. That’s how you know you’ve arrived. Makes sense, then, that he should finally get the chance to be one of the promoted names in a big-budget tentpole film and see how it works out. According to Deadline, makers of epic film Lana and Andy Wachowski have just signed Bean to play the Han Solo-type for their next big project, Jupiter Ascending. He joins Channing Tatum, Mila Kunis, and Eddie Redmayne in a cast that’s starting to look like the strongest the Wachowskis have ever worked with.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s the thing that tucks you in at night, ensures that not a creature is stirring and keeps an eye out for that chubby guy with the red suit. It’s on duty all year ’round though, so late nights get a little boring. Luckily there’s movie news to talk about. Anchor Date – Great news this week from the Channel 4 News Team. Ron Burgundy and his friends have set a date for their return. The long anticipated Anchorman 2 will hit theaters on December 20, 2013. Luckily, the world did not end today as planned. Suck it, Mayans. Now we get more of Ron, Brick, Champ, Brian Fantana and all the wonderful supporting characters that populate the Sex Panther-scented world of San Diego.

Will Ferrell is a funny man. This seems to be a fact undeniable even to those who don’t otherwise care for his brand of comedy. Even though his schtick has become reliably familiar – he often plays variations of an over-privileged adult child who is hopelessly naïve in certain categories of social life and prone to random bursts of livid anger – its regularity has yet to prevent Ferrell’s comic talents from growing stale. There seems to also be some indescribable aura at the core of Ferrell’s comic talent, something about his appearance and demeanor that can’t be explained through analyses of timing and punchline, as evidenced by his strange appearance on Jimmy Fallon last May. For many, Ferrell’s comic appeal has been this essential, indescribably funny core since his SNL days. Ferrell is funny not exclusively because of his physical comedy or imitable characters; he, as a force of nature, is pure farce (a farce of nature?). But as his film career continues to accumulate titles and as his unique comic sensibilities become better-known with his roles as producer and writer, it’s clear that, beneath his farce, Ferrell has a confrontational political and satirical streak underlying much of his work, which has naturally led to him portraying a politician in Jay Roach’s The Campaign. Ferrell’s roles, however, often exercise a fascinating and occasionally self-defeating tension between satire and farce, with one element substituting, rather than laying the groundwork for, the other. Here’s an overview of the politics of Will

Once upon a time, Adam McKay’s upcoming football comedy Three Mississippi was going to be a glorious re-teaming of not only Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell’s dueling idiots act from The Other Guys, but also a re-teaming of Wahlberg and Alex Baldwin’s meathead chemistry from The Departed. But now Mark Wahlberg is dropping out of the movie, and heck, it isn’t even an Adam McKay comedy anymore. Just when things were looking so promising too. What happened? It’s a sad tale of other movies taking priority. With Peter Berg’s Battleship sinking at the box office, Universal got cold feet when it came to financing his next movie, Lone Survivor, which is about a Navy SEAL on a doomed mission. Without Universal fronting the bill, Berg needed a big name attached to the project in order to procure some new financing, and he got that in the form of Mark Wahlberg. As part of the deal, Wahlberg had to agree to make Lone Survivor his next project. The other movie that took the wind out of the sails of Three Mississippi is McKay and Ferrell’s upcoming Anchorman sequel. For the longest time nobody thought that movie was going to happen, but then it got unexpectedly green lit and suddenly McKay found himself in the position of having to drop out of Three Mississippi. Ferrell’s own commitments to that film made it pretty impossible for he and Wahlberg’s now inflexible schedules to synch up, so something had to be done.

This past weekend, a new teaser trailer for Adam McKay’s highly anticipated comedy sequel Anchorman 2 played in theaters, but not many people got to check it out because it was attached to The Dictator and paying movie ticket prices and sitting through over an hour of Sacha Baron Cohen’s stale act just to see a few seconds of Anchorman goodness wasn’t a proposition for the weak at heart. But everybody who missed out can stop crying and start rejoicing, because not only has that teaser trailer now hit the net, but there’s also an alternate version of said trailer being hosted over at Funny or Die. Both trailers have a similar set-up: the guys strike iconic poses, get a chance to riff a funny line, and liberal use is made of that Alan Parsons Project song that Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat used to come out to in the ’80s and the Chicago Bulls used to come out to in the ’90s. But you should give each a look, because the one that appeared in theaters is dirtier and the one that’s exclusive to Funny or Die brings back Anchorman narrator Bill Kurtis. Hurry up and hit play before I keep typing and give away all the gags:

The teaser trailer for Anchorman 2 is in front of The Dictator, which means it should be swimming its way onto the internet any second now. Wait for it. Wait. For it. But while you’re waiting, scope out this new poster for the forthcoming film which seems to have taken forever to greenlight and yet no time at all to film. It’s nowhere near being done, but doesn’t it feel that way? With Will Ferrell announcing the project on Conan, a trailer that’s already ready to roll and now one sheet work, it almost seems like we should be seeing Ron Burgundy in theaters next week or something. Nevertheless, by great Odin’s raven, here’s the poster:

Tomorrow, the Sacha Baron Cohen-starring, Larry Charles-directed The Dictator opens. Unlike the previous two docu-prank collaborations between Charles and Cohen, the humor of the fully staged Dictator doesn’t so much rely on the reactions of ‘real people’ to an idiosyncratic foreigner as it uses its fish-out-of-water arc to chronicle the pseudo-enlightened changes that its eponymous character experiences (this is all based on the film’s advertising – I have yet to see it). With its riches-to-rags narrative, The Dictator seems to be the newest iteration of a long tradition in Hollywood comedy: the story of the redeemable asshole. It’s rather appropriate that the teaser trailer for Anchorman 2 will be premiering in front of The Dictator.  Will Ferrell has made the redeemable asshole into something of an art form in his collaborations with Adam McKay. Ferrell’s often narcissistic, privileged, ignorant, and empathy-challenged creations should, by any measure of any other genre (audiences are far less tolerant of asshole protags in, say, dramedys) be reviled by audiences. But we ultimately find something redeemable, even lovable, in Ferrell’s jerks, even if this surface-level redemption overshadows the fact that they never quite achieve the level of self-awareness that would actually redeem one from assholedom. These are characters we would likely avoid in nearly any real-life circumstance, but yet we go see movies about them learning life lessons which add up to little more than common knowledge for the rest of us. The redeemable asshole is often a white male who is conniving, manipulative, entitled,

What is Movie News After Dark? This week it’s a series of second stringer fill-ins trying not to run things into the ground while regular columnist Neil Miller disappears for a while due to reasons both glamorous and mysterious (in true Lohan fashion, he’s cited both “exhaustion” and “being dehydrated”). And today it’s a laundry list of Internet people still crushing on Joss Whedon’s superhero extravaganza, The Avengers, because Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows shit the bed this weekend and we haven’t had anything shiny to come along to steal away our fickle attentions yet. Let’s get to it. The above image comes from an artist named Hannah, who has proven that her finger is firmly on the pulse of the Internet by paying tribute both to the death of beloved children’s author Maurice Sendak as well as the work of beloved nerd-God Joss Whedon by mashing up Sendak’s artistic style with the cast of The Avengers. Is cute, no?

Hot off the announcement that Adam McKay and crew are finally going to make Anchorman 2 comes word that the director has another project in the works, this one a strange choice for a filmmaker mostly known for absurdist comedies starring Will Ferrell. Deadline Coconut Grove is reporting that, after McKay finishes up shooting on the next Anchorman film, he’s negotiating to begin work on a remake of the 1974 Sydney Poitier film Uptown Saturday Night. For those of us whose memories don’t go all the way back to 1974, Uptown Saturday Night was a comedy that Poitier starred in himself, alongside Bill Cosby, that saw the two of them playing in over-their-head everymen faced with the task of hunting down some shady criminal types. On a whim, the duo go to a seedy nightclub where their wallets are promptly robbed by some thug types. Problem is, one of the wallets contains a winning lottery ticket, so the freaked-out friends have to do whatever it takes to get their property back.

In the latest issue of Empire, writer/director/custodian Adam McKay explained that a sea of change was going to attack the news team from Channel Four in the upcoming Anchorman 2. After dealing with sexual politics and women in the work place, the sequel will jump ahead just a few years to the issue of racial diversity. “It’s right when all the news started changing with the 24-hours news cycle in ’78 or ’79,” said McKay. “All of a sudden, local news stations diversified and had Latino anchors and African-American anchors, and any time you’re talking about diversity and the Action News team, that’s always fun to deal with.” A fantastic idea. McKay has never shied away from making political statements, but it’s both surprising and unsurprising that Anchorman 2 would take this tilt. After all, the original isn’t touted as a champion of social consciousness. The fact that it should be is why it’s excellent to see diversity on the menu for the next adventure for Ron Burgundy and friends.