What is Casting Couch? It’s a handy one-stop source for all the casting news that broke while you were sleeping in over the weekend. Not only are Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart two of the most hilarious comic actors working today, they’re also two of the most famous funny people on the planet. So the fact that they’re going to be teaming up for a new comedy from Key & Peele showrunners Ian Roberts and Jay Martel is potentially big news. The pitch they’ll be working from, which Deadline says Warner Bros. is currently negotiating to acquire, is for a film called Get Hard, which will cast Ferrell as a yuppie investment banker who gets sentenced to a maximum security prison, and Hart as the streetwise guy he hires to teach him how to handle life on the inside before he has to report in 30 days. Montage fans should take note, because it sounds like this is the sort of movie that’s going to have a lot of them.

According to Deadline Hollywood, Steve Pink (Accepted, Hot Tub Time Machine) is in talks to direct a remake of About Last Night… which will take the original David Mamet play’s title as its own. So, in all fairness, Sexual Perversity in Chicago isn’t so much a remake as it is a second adaptation of the Mamet play. Only 237 more to go before he reaches Shakespeare status. The movie, written by Leslye Headland (Bachelorette), has Michael Ealy and Kevin Hart set to co-star and Regina Hall rumored for a third role. The production is still looking for the second female lead. Here’s where I go out on a limb, so hear me out. The studious will notice that all three acting talents involved are 1) great at what they do and 2) all African-American. Thus, Screen Gems has a unique opportunity here, and I sincerely hope that they will not bury this project with niche-only marketing that hits the Tyler Perry sweet spot without reaching out organically to a broad base. Yes, I see the irony in me pointing out the obvious in order to ask Screen Gems not to point out the obvious, but there’s no reason they shouldn’t give the kind of advertising money necessary to treat this like anything other than a standard romantic dramedy. Except, you know, history.

The power of casting Kevin Hart is now so overwhelming that the actor/comedian can rescue even the most plagued of projects. Hart, recently cast in such varied fare as the About Last Night remake, an uninspired Kevin James comedy, and a buddy cop comedy with Seth Rogen, has now signed on to star alongside Ice Cube in Ride Along for Universal. The comedy will be directed by Tim Story, and it reunites the director with his Think Like a Man star (Hart) and producer (Will Packer). Ice Cube will also produce the project, alongside Matt Alvarez and Larry Brezner. The film was first announced back in 2009 (via a report from Variety), but has languished at New Line until now, with Universal Pictures picking it up out of turnaround. Deadline Venice reports that this was “partly over trying to figure out the leads, but Universal was ready to move quickly in reteaming Story, Hart and Packer after Think Like A Man, a sleeper hit that has grossed $91 million domestic for Screen Gems.” However, the comedic script has apparently gone through a number of drafts, including the original one from Greg Coolidge, a pass from Steve Faber and Bob Fisher, a “quick rewrite” from Cube himself, and at least one more version from The Dictator star Jason Mantzoukas. Casting issues aside, a script that’s been touched by at least five different writers (especially a comedy that sounds relatively straightforward) is also cause for both a bit of pause and some concern.

Recently, our own Nathan Adams bemoaned comedian-turned-actor Kevin Hart’s decision to sign on to Valet Guys, as a sidekick to Kevin James in a surely unfunny Kevin James vehicle. But while that was perhaps a bad idea on Hart’s part, we should not forget Hart’s other recent project pick-up: a buddy cop comedy with Seth Rogen that has a misleading and/or totally brilliant tagline. Paired with today’s announcement that Hart is taking cues from Jim Belushi, it seems as if the funny man is seriously interested in mixing up his comedic outings – and, as is so rare when it comes to talking about Jim Belushi’s career cues (Snow Buddies, really?), that’s probably a fantastic idea. THR reports that Hart has joined the cast of Screen Gems’ remake of About Last Night. The 1986 film was directed by Edward Zwick and comes from no less than David Mamet‘s play, Sexual Perversity in Chicago. The film centered on a pair of twentysomethings (Rob Lowe and Demi Moore) who have a one night stand and attempt to make an actual go of it (in the form of a real relationship). All sorts of things bog them down – especially their disapproving best pals (played originally by Belushi and Elizabeth Perkins) who have no bones about trying to break them up.

Blink and you may have missed it, but Kevin Hart is now pretty much the biggest comedian in the world. Though he’s not yet a household name in some Middle American holdouts, at some point in the last few years the diminutive loudmouth has gone from working the stand-up circuit and impressing in side roles in Judd Apatow films to filling arenas full of people late-80s Andrew Dice Clay style with his stand-up routine and starring in films like Think Like a Man, which just made more than seven times its budget back at the box office. Right now, the world is his oyster and all he has to do is reach down and pluck out the pearls. So what’s a guy in such an enviable position got planned for his next move? If Deadline Jenkintown is to be believed, it’s obviously got to be co-starring in a Kevin James comedy.

There are few types of movie news stories that feel better to read than those reporting on an original spec script has been bought by one of the big studios, and that’s exactly the sort of story this is. Variety has word that comedy writer Rodney Rothman (Late Show With David Letterman, Undeclared) has sold a script to Paramount. Being ludicrously billed as the “first interracial police pairing in law enforcement history,” Rothman’s still untitled police comedy is notable not just because it’s an original work without any ties to a pre-existing property, but because it’s landed a couple of big names as its interracial police pairing. Seth Rogen and Kevin Hart are on board to not only star in the picture, but they will both produce alongside Rothman as well. With Rogen being one of the few working actors that seems to be a proven box office draw and Kevin Hart’s stand-up career getting more and more monstrously successful by the second, this movie has to instantly be considered one of the big upcoming comedies in Hollywood.