Last August, during that first rush to pin down Bridesmaids stand-out Melissa McCarthy, we reported on a McCarthy-starring project that would pit her against Jason Bateman. The film was then titled ID Theft and was set to revolve around McCarthy’s character stealing Bateman’s character’s identity. Hijinks would, of course, ensue. The film has now gotten a slight title change and a not-wholly-unexpected director. Identity Theft will be directed by Seth Gordon, who has already directed Bateman to reasonable hilarity in Horrible Bosses. Written by The Pursuit of Happyness scribe Steve Conrad (with a rewrite by Craig Mazin), the project already has a bit of notoriety, as Bateman (who is also producing) reportedly asked that the film’s script be tweaked to see a man and a woman face off (it was previously a dueling dude affair) after being bowled over by McCarthy’s performance in Bridesmaids. Gordon’s name has already been bandied about for the Horrible Bosses sequel and he’s currently set to direct that bizarrely inevitable War Games remake. [Deadline Plainfield]  

While Universal may be scraping to get together a sequel to their comedy hit, Bridesmaids, New Line and Warner Bros. are having significantly better luck with their latest incarnation of a comedy hit. The studios have closed a deal with Horrible Bosses screenwriters John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein for a second film, one that is expected to see its three leads, Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, and Jason Sudeikis, all back in front of the camera. And behind the camera? Original director Seth Gordon is also “in early talks” for the sequel. Now that’s how you get a band of merry murderers back together. The summer release was a surprise hit – made on the relative cheap for $35m, it racked up $209m worldwide. A cross between workplace comedy and hitman flick, the film saw Bateman, Day, and Sudeikis as three best friends who all hate their bosses (played by Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston, and Colin Farrell, respectively) for very different reasons. In the film, the three knuckleheads conceive of a plan to knock off each other’s headache-inducing supervisors, the sort of plan that sounds okay-ish on paper, only to crumble spectacularly (and hilariously!) in execution. The film was Daley and Goldstein’s first project together, and they have also written another New Line comedy, the upcoming Burt Wonderstone (filming early this year), along with the sequel to the charming Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.

Usually I’m quite cynical about end-of-year lists, as they demand a forced encapsulation of an arbitrary block of time that is not yet over into something simplified. I typically find end-of-year lists fun, but rarely useful. But 2011 is different. As Scott Tobias pointed out, while “quiet,” this was a surprisingly strong year for interesting and risk-taking films. What’s most interesting has been the variety: barely anything has emerged as a leading contender that tops either critics’ lists or dominates awards buzz. Quite honestly, at the end of 2010 I struggled to find compelling topics, trends, and events to define the year in cinema. The final days of 2011 brought a quite opposite struggle, for this year’s surprising glut of interesting and disparate films spoke to one another in a way that makes it difficult to isolate any of the year’s significant works. Arguments in the critical community actually led to insightful points as they addressed essential questions of what it means to be a filmgoer and a cinephile. Mainstream Hollywood machine-work and limited release arthouse fare defied expectations in several directions. New stars arose. Tired Hollywood rituals and ostensibly reliable technologies both met new breaking points. “2011” hangs over this year in cinema, and the interaction between the films – and the events and conversations that surrounded them – makes this year’s offerings particular to their time and subject to their context. This is what I took away from this surprising year:

MGM is mining the 80s for remake gold, and the latest nugget is a remake of WarGames that people will be all a titter about when they see Matthew Broderick’s inevitable cameo role as a janitor at the War Room or something. The good news is that it will incorporate modernized video games (as opposed to Pong Extreme), and that Seth Gordon will be directing it. Even though it only makes sense in Hollywood logic, as the director of King of Kong, he’s at least got some video game street cred. Who doesn’t have that street cred is Noah Oppenheimer, the man recently hired to write the script. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Oppenheimer is a senior producer for The Today Show, but has recently branched out into feature film writing with a script called Jackie O that’s perked up a few ears. Plus, he was attached to that Snabba Cash remake that, so far, hasn’t been made yet. So it goes. Oppenheimer is an untested element here, and his last name makes it sounds like he invented the nuclear bomb, but he’s certainly not lacking for experience. At least, he’s got nearly 650 episodes of a morning news/entertainment show under his belt, and that can’t be the easiest program to pull off. Still, it will be interesting to see how far this project goes down the field. Or if MGM thinks it’s making a movie, but is really starting World War III.

Years ago director Seth Gordon made a big impression with his critical doc darling, The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. The film made our own best 30 films of the decade and you’d be on a fool’s mission to find someone who doesn’t enjoy that unique story. To no surprise, the heavily pirated documentary kicked down a lot of doors for Gordon. Just recently he’s been attached to direct the WarGames remake, so it’s obvious he’s come quite a long way in a quick amount of time. His latest comedy, Horrible Bosses, also represents how rapid the filmmaker is rising. The greatest surprise of the film is that, tonally, the film isn’t all that mean. The story’s about three guys plotting to murder their respective bosses, but even with that dark concept and some bastardly antagonists it never goes to the extreme. Gordon flirts with some darkness and satire, but it stays relatively safe. Here’s what director Seth Gordon had to say about the doors The King of Kong opened up for him, going with a lighter version of Horrible Bosses, and the nature of comedic filmmaking:

Horrible Bosses features some of the most inspired casting you’ll find in any big studio comedy this year, with three actors playing against type with exceptional success. Unfortunately, those three performers — Kevin Spacey, Colin Farrell and Jennifer Aniston — are the supporting acts here, the titular vile bosses of three of the most boring white guys imaginable. Sure, they’re played by Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day, funny men all, but the stars lack the charisma, the comic energy and the overall appeal of the aforementioned A-listers, who go to some truly whacked-out places. It’s a fundamental miscalculation that filmmaker Seth Gordon can’t overcome.

Magic is like the Schrödinger’s Cat of obscure passions. Or, to put it another way, magic is simultaneously very cool and not cool at all. Similar fields are definitely one or the other… mimes for instance, are never cool. But watching a good magic show can leave an audience in awe wondering how exactly the tricks were done, while at the same time the magicians’ offstage persona often reveals them to be socially awkward, obsessive-compulsive geeks. So cool and uncool, simultaneously. Make Believe follows six teenagers from around the world who have immersed themselves into the world of the stage magician. They practice and perform constantly while juggling their “normal” teen lives with varying levels of success. The crux of the story is their involvement in an annual World Teen Magician competition, and the film follows their preparation and experiences leading up to and beyond the event. The six teens come from varying backgrounds and personalities but all share a common love for magic and the art of illusion, and their stories as seen here help prove the maxim above.

This red-band trailer probably gives away too much. Unlike most red-band trailers, though, it doesn’t giveaway all the best gags. I’ve seen Horrible Bosses, and it’s awesome. What the fellow ensemble summer comedy The Hangover II got wrong, Seth Gordon’s (director behind the incredible The King of King: A Fistful of Quarters) comedy got right. The leads aren’t annoying morons, the jokes feel fresh, and there’s at least some sense of reality.

What is Movie News After Dark? It is not a sentient being sent to Earth to bring you nightly doses of absolute and unquestionable brilliance. It is not the wittiest chap at the tea party. It is not an ad-free experience. It is, however, a nightly gathering of entertainment news and views that works very hard to win your affection. Except for last night, when its usually diligent author felt pain so bold that it had him contemplating watching Glitter again… Breaking tonight is the news that Seth Gordon, director of such films as The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters and Four Christmases, is now attached to direct a remake of the 1983 film WarGames. This news will undoubtedly be met with mixed reactions, as their is a delicate balance between people’s hatred for remakes and their enjoyment of the works of Seth Gordon. Which will win out? More at 11…

Seth Gordon’s new comedy Horrible Bosses has a trailer. If you don’t know who Seth Gordon is, he’s not only the guy who directed the amazing Donkey Kong documentary King of Kong, but he’s also directed episodes of pretty much every amazingly funny comedy that’s on TV right now. So, I imagine his movie is going to be pretty great, and while this trailer isn’t exactly revolutionary, it does its job of making this look like a barrel of laughs. Horrible Bosses tells the story of three guys, played by Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, and Jason Sudeikis, who have three exceptionally evil bosses, played by Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell, and Kevin Spacey, and who get together and decide to have them killed. Of course, they’re just a couple of working class dweebs, what do they know about killing people? Problem solved; just hire Jamie Foxx as your “murder consultant” Motherfucker Jones. Doesn’t sound like enough for you to check out this movie already? Just wait; there’s more. Aniston eats hotdogs, Popsicles, and bananas while wearing lingerie, Day seems to be just about as stupid as he is on Always Sunny, Colin Farrell is looking super creepy with a balding comb over and a finely manicured beard, Modern Family’s Julie Bowen is somewhere in this movie being pretty and funny, and when they guys get arrested for speeding who is their arresting officer but Bunk from The Wire. Plus there’s car crashes, discrimination against the handicapped, comedic cocaine use, and white [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Percy Jackson and 3:10 to Yuma actor Logan Lerman is attached to a new indie film whose title takes inspiration from a Simon and Garfunkel tune. The young actor is ready to start production this fall on The Only Living Boy in New York, a sort of coming of age, romantic triangle, boy coming to grips with the imperfection of his parents movie that is set to be directed by Seth Gordon, the man who made the universally beloved documentary The King of Kong, and who has recently been busying himself directing episodes of great TV comedies like Parks and Recreation, Modern Family, and Community. The reason the new film won’t likely start until fall is that Lerman is starting to become something of a hot ticket item over there in the Hollywood. Not only does he have a round of publicity coming up for his big summer blockbuster version of Three Musketeers, but he’s also about to start production on an adaptation of the ridiculously successful Stephen Chbosky teen angst novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It looks like Lerman is subscribing fully to the Give Them an Action Movie/Give Them an Indie Drama model of career building. He may be one to keep an eye on. Source: Deadline State College

Reading “Freakonomics” was sort of a badge of honor for presumably independent-thinking business school students back in college, but its effect cannot be overstated. It was part of the non-fiction revolution taking a deeper look into the world that we live in from a younger generation that refused to wear tweed jackets or talk quietly in class. A generation more pop-cultured than cultured. It makes sense that in adapting the best-selling book into a film, the younger generation of well-known documentary filmmakers would be asked to add their own true story about connectivity to the mix.

For our final Tribeca review, we look at the disappointing ‘Freakonomics,’ which was the fest’s closing night feature.

Sony is the home and King of Kong director Seth Gordon is set to helm. Will we finally get to see King Dork?

Variety is reporting today that The King of Kong and Four Christmases director Seth Gordon’s next project, a comedy entitled Mr. Romance, has been optioned by New Regency. And upon doing some investigation into the matter, I found this to be a very interesting project.

Its not a film about King Kong, but instead is a humorous documentary on another famous Kong, the 80s arcade game relic—Donkey Kong—and those who have spent their lives trying to master it.

Iron Man director Jon Favreau is taking another shot at acting. This time he is going to be re-joined with longtime collaborator Vince Vaughn on director Seth Gordon’s (King of Kong) upcoming comedy Four Christmases.