What is Casting Couch? It’s all part of a very simple process. Movie execs do the casting, the trades get the casting announcements, and then we put all of the news in one handy place. Today trios of big actors have been added to both Kung-Fu Panda 3 and Beware the Night. Jim Carrey’s casting in the upcoming comedy Ricky Stanicky has been a long time coming. According to Deadline, he’s been looking at this Black List script about a group of friends who have blamed everything they do wrong on a made up acquaintance named “Ricky Stanicky” their entire lives for about a year, and only just recently has decided to sign on to star. The deciding factor seems to be the fact that Steve Oedekerk has also come on board the project to direct, and Carrey already has experience working with him on Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls. Remember, Oedekerk directed that scene where Carrey was birthed from a rhino’s ass? Classic. It looks like we can begin readying ourselves for some more high concept comedy.

The last time Dan Rosen directed a movie, it was the middling thriller The Curve (aka Dead Man’s Curve) in 1998. He hasn’t been steadily working since then or anything, but now he’s back with a second directorial effort called Freeloaders that has a new NASCAR style trailer: the only thing good about it are the crashes. And there are many. The premise is good enough: a bunch of slackers living in a rock star’s mansion are about to get kicked out because he wants to sell, so they try to raise money to buy it from him. Unfortunately, well, just watch the trailer for yourself and get ready to laugh for the wrong reasons:

You know that comedian at open mic night who provides too many tangential details in his set up and takes forever to get to the simplest of punchlines? This is the movie equivalent. With its thoroughly modern concept, The Babymakers follows a husband (Paul Schneider) who has to break into a sperm bank in order to get back his last viable batch of swimmers and impregnate his wife (Olivia Munn). It’s a fantastic spin on heist stories, and with Jay Chandrasekhar at the helm, there’s a sense of comedic prowess, but the movie itself gets bogged down in its gag set ups, leaving little room for pay off. There are some great moments, but the difficulty in making a story revolving around a sperm bank heist is that, as writers Peter Gaulke and Gerry Swallow most likely found out early on, it’s not all that hard to break into a sperm bank. It turns out that security is pretty lax considering the low resale street value of their stored goods. Unfortunately, instead of building up a natural set of situations leading up to the theft, the film wanders about aimlessly, backtracks, returns with a force, recants and then leaves its high concept for its climax.

In 1985, John Fogerty was sued for plagiarizing himself. It was a bizarre courtroom situation that arose because Fogerty had forfeited the rights to his old Creedance Clearwater Revival hits to a former record label that went after him when a song he wrote on his new album “Centerfield” sounded too much like his own work. Copyright law is complicated. What can you do. In the last week, a script surfaced that’s purportedly the pilot to The Newsroom, the new HBO show from Aaron Sorkin, and it feels a bit like Fogerty all over again. Sorkin is cribbing off of Sorkin. Of course there are a million grains of salt to throw with this. The primary one being that random scripts on the old internet could be from anywhere. For some reason, writers believe they can fake leaked scripts in order to gain a name through the back door (like writers did on Studio 60 when they weren’t being heard in the room), but it’s actually the writing equivalent of suicide by cop (which a troubled man did on an episode of The West Wing). The internet can be an unforgiving place and pretending to be another writer automatically creates a comparison that no one can survive against. However, this particular script (which you can find if you search for it) seems legit. But there’s a funny thing there, when you’re reading a curious script that can be from anyone. In the back of your mind, you’re imagining that someone

Jay Chandrasekhar’s twist on the bank heist film, The Babymakers, takes a somewhat clever and fun premise and buries it under muffled performances, piles of unfunny jokes, and a complete disregard for clarity of theme. The film is packed with all of the markers that we’ve come to expect from current Hangover and Apatow-inspired comedy – it’s raunchy and dirty and even occasionally offensive – but there’s no bite or originality behind any of it, it just feels tired and wrung out. Chandrasekhar’s shtick has worn thin since his best and ballsiest comedy, Super Troopers, and lensing a flick from writers Peter Gaulke and Gerry Swallow (best known for stuff like Black Knight and Say It Isn’t So) hasn’t done him any favors. The film centers on happily married pair Tommy (Paul Schneider) and Audrey (Olivia Munn) who decides it’s high time to conceive a baby. After months of trying, it becomes evident that there’s something amiss with either one or both of them, and when they discover it’s Tommy and his “confused sperm,” he lets slip that there’s no way that could be so. After all, he paid for Audrey’s engagement ring with money from donating his sperm for twenty weeks in a row. Oh – oops! She didn’t know that. Determined to win back his wife, Tommy and his pack of moronic pals (including Kevin Heffernan and Nat Faxon) cook up a plan to rob the sperm bank that’s holding Tommy’s last batch hostage, with help from a

Color me shocked. After years of famously refusing to remove his clothing for films, Matthew McConaughey has finally given in and stripped down. Magic Mike must be a hell of a project to make him betray his own ethical stance against half-nudity in film. Either that, or Steven Soderberg must have convinced him that he had to get partially naked in order to co-star. Well, I hope it was worth it, Mr. McConaughey. I hope it was worth your dignity. As you can see, Warners has released the first official image from the movie (which is also the first image ever of McConaughey without any top cover) that stars Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, McConaughey and Olivia Munn. As we all know, it’s about male strippers. As we know because of this picture, it’s about patriotic strippers. And, as you can tell, we finally know why McConaughey refused to take his top off before now. Eesh.

If you woke up this morning and felt you needed to see a trailer frothing over with semen jokes, it’s as if the planets have aligned to tell you that you need more therapy and that the redband trailer for Babymakers has poked its little head out onto the internet. This is the Broken Lizard movie that isn’t a Broken Lizard movie. Instead of the gang from Beerfest trying to impregnate everyone, it stars Olivia Munn and Paul Schneider (Away We Go, Lars and the Real Girl) as a couple who have trouble conceiving. Fortunately, Schneider’s character donated a bunch of great sperm years ago. Unfortunately, it’s all gone, so he has to try to steal some of it back. Good old Kevin “Farva” Heffernan is on board as the sidekick, and Jay Chandrasekhar is directing and playing an Indian mafia killer (complete with genuine Indian accent!). As for the rest of the Broken Lizard gang, they look like they’re relegated to the background here. Check out the trailer for yourself:

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr feels the weight of the fall movie season. It’s September, and while the kids are heading back to school, he’s playing hooky with Sarah Jessica Parker chick flicks and yet another not-quite-70s-video-nasty remake. Kevin is consoled by the release of Drive, however, because Albert Brooks as a crime boss makes him chuckle. And his love for 3D and Disney meet head-on in a collision of awesomeness.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s hard to say, really. All we know for sure is that NASA is trying to cover it up. Chances are that you’ve seen tonight’s lead photo before — it’s one of many spy shots from the set of Man of Steel featuring Henry Cavill’s new look as Superman. But lets talk about this for a moment. What do we think about this? Is it the fanboy kryptonite as Hero Complex might suggest? I’m not convinced that anything is good or bad for the Superman franchise anymore. Perhaps staying dormant would have been a good idea. But then again, I’m the guy who liked Superman Returns. If Zack Snyder is going for different, he’s certainly found it.

Say what you will about any of their movies, but Broken Lizard takes chances. They’re one of the only comedy groups that have successfully navigated the waters to continue translating their brand of humor to movies. If you don’t think it’s that hard, just ask The Whitest Kids U Know. Their latest is The Baby Makers – which should prove an interesting challenge since it wasn’t written by the group. The script from Peter Gaulke and Gerry Swallow (Black Knight, seriously, Black Knight) focuses on a man who discovers he can’t make baby juice anymore, so he hatches a plan with his friends to rob a sperm bank that has some of his deposits. Paul Schneider will be bringing his nuanced talent to the lead role, and now Variety is reporting that Olivia Munn has joined the cast as well. Her role isn’t clear at the moment, but it very well may be the wife of the newly impotent robber. Munn played a small role in Slammin’ Salmon – as the bitchy, trying-too-hard girlfriend of a man trying to propose – and her appeal is pretty obvious (considering she’s willing to dress up like Chun Li and lick an Apple TV), but her personality is way too caustic. It doesn’t seem to fit with the overall (sometimes mindless) joy that Broken Lizard brings to projects, although it might make a nice foil. Who knows. Maybe her character will call for exactly what she has to offer.

The ground is far too fertile when a film from Sarah Jessica Parker is called I Don’t Know How She Does It, but rather than take cheap shots by answering the rhetorical title, it’s more important to celebrate the talent she’ll be surrounding herself with. The film has just signed on Christina Hendricks (despite science still having no explanation for how she physically exists) and SNL head writer Seth Meyers (despite science still having no explanation for how SNL still exists). Both are fairly new to the film but aren’t strangers to show business. Plus, they are the perfect, harmless additions to what seems like a stock comedy about a woman having it all. After all, there has to be a gossipy best friend and someone for Christina Hendricks to play. Oliva Munn will also be playing a small role, busting out of her cameo phase and the twitter fame people seem to care so much about. Over all, Sarah Jessica Parker has somehow completely morphed from the manic pixie dream girl of L.A. Story to the disliked shrew of today, but if she insists on hopping into the romantic comedy business, it might as well be with some talented actors who deserve more time on the big screen. [LA Times]

Another day comes, and another opportunity for us to lay down some of the day’s hot news stories is upon is. But instead, we begin your Thursday with The B-Roll. Or as we like to say, “And now, for something completely different.”

I really want to see dolls gnawing on an old woman as she goes insane, so obviously I’m stoked to see Elijah Wood anxious to get cameras rolling on the forthcoming horror flick The Home.

There is something about director Jon Favreau and his cronies over at Marvel Studios that leads me to believe that they are wired perfectly for this business.

Jane Seymour, Olivia Munn, Brit Morgan. Broken Lizard has a grand talent for casting gorgeous women. Now, how is Broken Lizard involved in this movie again?

The full event schedule for Comic-Con International 2008 has finally been released online via the official Comic-Con website. And just to give you a taste of what you should be looking out for, I have dug into the schedule and emerged with some of the can’t miss movie geek events.