A few days ago I reported on a story that two former female leads from Charlie Kaufman movies would both be working with the writer again, this time on his next directorial effort Frank or Francis. It turns out that was only half right. While Catherine Keener does appear to be attached to the film, buried in a report about Paul Reubens joining the cast is confirmation from THR that Kate Winslet has not. That’s a pretty big blow to my enthusiasm for the added girl power that this movie would have gotten by casting both Keener and Winslet, and the inclusion of Pee-Wee does little to soften the blow. Fortunately for me, there’s some more news that does soften the blow a bit. In another report, THR says that Elizabeth Banks has joined the cast, and in a role that sounds like it has some potential for hilarity. As we know already, Steve Carell and Jack Black are playing the title characters, a director and a film blogger who come into conflict with one another over a series of bad reviews. Well, it appears that Banks will be playing the Carell character’s girlfriend, an actress who keeps making “formulaic comedy bombs.” Seeing as the focus of this movie is the world of filmmaking vs. the world of film criticism, I’m imagining that Banks’ character will provide some delicious jabs sent the way of actresses like Kate Hudson and Katherine Heigl, the undisputed queens of the formulaic comedy bomb.

“You know, Mikey, one day you’re going to stick your dick in the wrong door, and somebody’s going to slam it,” and that line represents Man on a Ledge in a nutshell. Goofy and laughable, but overall kind of charming. Director Asger Leth, with the assistance of commercial honcho mega producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, has made a through and through B movie. What you’d expect from a movie called Man on a Ledge, you get. It’s all fairly preposterous and thin, and Leth knows not to let it go on too long before its cheesy charms lose steam. The plot, well, you already know it. Anyone who’s seen that trailer has seen it all. For those of you who live under a rock though, Ledge follows Nick Cassidy, played compellingly enough by Sam Worthington and a dodgy accent. Cassidy wants to prove his innocence over a stolen diamond, so like any wise man, he escapes prison and goes to hang out on a ledge. But things aren’t what they seem, as is always the case. As he teases a suicide, his brother Joe (Jamie Bell) and his eye-candy girlfriend, played by the suavely named Genesis Rodriguez, go about robbing the man who may have framed Nick, the snarling David Englander (Ed Harris).

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr tapes some alcohol bottles to his knuckles and gets ready to brawl with wolves. Unfortunately, he first drinks all the booze in the bottles and ends up passing out in the snow. When he wakes up, he brushes himself off and heads downtown to climb on the ledge of a tall building. The police are called to try and save him, but Kevin ends up jumping when he learns that Katherine Heigl is brought in to talk him down. Fortunately, Kevin survives the fall and stumbles to the local multiplex to check out this week’s new movies.

There’s something great about the female-centric advertising coming out of a generic comedy based on an advice book for mothers about to deliver a bun fresh from the oven. The marketing team has faith in the women, and Lionsgate has faith in a woman-driven adult comedy. It’s clearly propelled by the success of Bridesmaids, but the more perverse secondary effect that that raucous comedy had on the studio math world is that crass women now equal box office gold. And thus, the posters for What to Expect When You’re Expecting. Again, it’s great to see women used so overtly for marketing without oversexualizing them (or, using their image months after their being sexualized?), but shoving bad lines with buzzwords in them reeks of desperation to appear edgy without actually having to be edgy. They won’t set back the women’s movement or anything, but they’re at least 10% heinous. Check them out for yourself:

Back in July of 2010 it was announced that Disney was putting together a live action Tinkerbell movie called Tink, and that Elizabeth Banks would star. That sounded like a fun idea, but July 2010 was a long time ago…whatever happened to it? Apparently it’s still a possibility, and while talking to Movie Hole, Banks spilled a few more details about the concept: “It’s a live action Tinkerbell movie sort of in the vein of Elf in which I would play Tinkerbell. Tinkerbell gets thrown out of Never Never Land, and it’s about where she goes and who she meets and the adventures she has…Tinkerbell is one of the greatest characters because she’s mischievous and snarky and fun and sexy and jealous and vengeful.” Invoking the name of Elf  is a pretty bold move. Could Disney really make something that funny? The possibility is there, as Banks is a talented comedic actress, and the script is being written by Fright Night screenwriter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer veteran Marti Noxon, who is no slouch either.

We continue our journey through a month of frightening, bloody and violent films. For more, check out our 31 Days of Horror homepage. Synopsis: A small town becomes ground zero to an alien invasion, which reaches Earth in the form of alien slugs on a chunk of space rock. After the meteor lands in the woods, a local big shot Grant Grant (Michael Rooker) becomes infected with the alien parasite, which controls his body and memories. It’s a story we’ve seen many times before, and understandably so. Director James Gunn creates a loving homage to movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Blob and Night of the Creeps, in which the small-town sheriff Bill Pardy (Nathan Fillion) must battle an onslaught of infected, zombified humans while trying to stop the spread of the parasite to the rest of the world. Helping the sheriff is his long-time crush and girl next door Starla (Elizabeth Banks), who also happens to be married to patient zero.

Our Idiot Brother floats by on the genial charms of Paul Rudd, an apparently nice guy in real life who’s playing just about the nicest, most pleasant guy in the world. That sounds like a recipe for ho-hum disaster, but Rudd happens to be ridiculously adept at selling you two bags of goods at once, imbuing that geniality with a fount of deep tangible feeling. Audiences accustomed to Judd Apatow-era Rudd might forget that he’s acted in Neil LaBute plays and films (before LaBute turned into a director-for-hire) and once played F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Nick Carraway in a Great Gatsby adaptation made for TV. The guy has dramatic chops, and he’s one of the few actors in Hollywood who can naturalistically flow them into a deceptively low-key framework. Here, Rudd stars as Ned — or Nedley, as mom calls him — a lovable, trusting hippie farmer who sells a cop some weed and winds up in jail. After his release, with nowhere to go, Ned moves in first with mom and then with his three high-strung sisters in succession.

Please don’t actually hold your lighter up to the screen to try this at home. Seriously. Put it down. This new motion poster for The Hunger Games features the main icon of the series – the Mockinjay Pin – which explodes in flames, but there’s no need to describe it here since it’s probably roasting below right now. Plus, if a picture is worth 1,000 words, this is technically worth 34,000,000. And, honestly, would you put that lighter away?

If you think that making a Space Invaders movie is the most desperate attempt Hollywood has made to tie a new film to a pre-existing property lately, you might have need to think again. Making headlines in the film world recently has been the upcoming movie What to Expect When You’re Expecting, which is a feature film adaptation of a pregnancy manual by Heidi Murkoff. So many actresses have been announced for this thing, one at a time, that it’s starting to reach Hunger Games levels of casting announcement fatigue. Perhaps appropriately enough, their latest addition to the cast is an actress who will be appearing in The Hunger Games as well. Elizabeth Banks is said to be joining the film as a first time mother who has already built an empire writing books about her breast-feeding methods. There is some indication that despite her so-called expertise, the experience of actually having a child herself is one that she’s not ready for. Banks will be joining a cast that already includes Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, Brooklyn Decker, and Anna Kendrick. The film is being directed by Waking Ned Devine’s Kirk Jones, from a script originally by Heather Hach and re-written by Shauna Cross. I can’t say that this is one that I’m looking forward to, but the inclusion of quality actresses like Banks and Kendrick is starting to make it look like it could have some potential. We shall see. [Coming Soon]

David Wain might have missed the 9:00 appointment ten years from when all the campers of Wet Hot American Summer got together, but he may still have a chance to see who they’ve all blossomed into. If you’re not getting the references here, go watch the movie. Don’t tell anyone you haven’t seen it. Just calmly, quietly watch it (instantly). According to an interview Wain did for The Q&A With Jeff Goldsmith, the writer/director has been thinking about doing a “sequel, prequel, something or other” to get the gang back together. That gang includes Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Bradley Cooper, Amy Poehler, Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter and many, many, many other comedians wearing shorts that are too small for them. If Wain goes with his prequel idea, it would see actors in their late 30s and early 40s playing 20-year-old camp counselors, and there’s not one thing wrong with that.

My Idiot Brother will premiere at Sundance later this month, bringing its sunny disposition to the cold of Utah. The movie features Paul Rudd as the eternal optimist with an uncanny beard-growing ability who springs back into the lives of his three sisters – played by Emily Mortimer, Elizabeth Banks, and Zooey Deschanel. There are 9 new images from the film which mostly show off the hippie rug covering Rudd’s face, as well as the strong, aforementioned talent pool playing his siblings.

Writer of every blockbuster movie within the past few years, Alex Kurtzman, will soon be taking his place in the director’s chair for an intimate drama about a family secret and existential crisis. Needless to say, there will probably not be any giant testicle-swinging robots in it. But, according to The Hollywood Reporter, there will be Olivia Wilde in it. The young actress who is absolutely blazing a trail through to stardom has just joined the cast which already included Chris Pine and Elizabeth Banks. Wilde just finished work on the Kurtzman-co-written Cowboys & Aliens, and it looks like she’ll be working with him again soon for Welcome to People.

If nothing else, The Next Three Days deserves credit for finding suspense in a story with no bad guys or antagonists for the audience to root against. It’s an uncommon feat in a Hollywood thriller, and along with last week’s Unstoppable may just be part of a mini revolution. Even better, for at least two-thirds of the running time the movie manages to be a tense, engaging, and unpredictable thriller. The strong build-up loses a bit of its edge though in the final third with the introduction of a brand new, out of the blue character who shall henceforth be known as Super Psychic Cop.

Support Our Sponsor: Conception – The new film from Chris Nolan that will Get. You. Pregnant. This week, on a very special Reject Radio, we have more guests than ever before! In preparation for our trip to Comic-Con, Vic from Screen Rant, Danny from the Totally Rad Show, and our very own Robert Fure tell me what to pack and what they’ll be looking forward to when the huge media melee begins. Buy your tickets now for the Squat Thrust Off. We also find some time to review The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Inception.

Prepare to have that slightly awkward crush you’ve always had on the absurdly petite fairy Tinkerbell amplified in the near future. It has something to do with Elizabeth Banks and all of the costume possibilities. Tinkerbell always did wear skimpy outfits, did she not? Alas, this is a story about a new live-action romantic comedy called Tink, in which Banks will play the beloved spreader of pixie dust. It’s being said that with this McG, Adam Shankman produced film “plays with the mischievous nature of the Tinkerbell character.” I’m not sure what that means, but having McG and Adam Shankman involved isn’t making me feel any easier about it. Banks works, but the guy who is responsible for Cheaper by the Dozen 2 does not. The good news is that the project is yet to attach a director, meaning that it still could go either way. For now, consider me hopeful as I ponder Elizabeth Banks in a Tinkerbell outfit. Don’t judge me. [Variety]

Jack finally decides whether he wants to be with Nancy (Julianne Moore) or Avery (Elizabeth Banks) while Liz accidentally runs into a man whom she believes is the answer to settling for Wesley (Michael Sheen): a pilot named Carol (Matt Damon).

Casting announcements shoot across the net almost every day, but not every announcement, rumor, or speculation deserves its own post. Of course we’d be remiss in our duties as the web’s premier source of movie news, reviews, and snark if we didn’t cover them in some fashion… so welcome to the Casting Net!

While Spider-Man 4 is still waiting for director Sam Raimi to be ready for action, it’s web-slinging star is moving on to something a little bit more indie — a black comedy called The Details.

This week, Bethany discovers that she’s not the only thing wet and hot this summer.

Ricky Gervais is still chubby but now is animated, J.J. Abrams discusses lens flares, Elizabeth Banks hits on Zac Efron, The Goonies, Michael Bay’s penis size. This is your very special humpday Early Edition!