Will Ferrell is taking on a serious-comedy role from the writer of Hancock.  He is attached to 2-Face.

Vince Gilligan’s script, which has had a long gestation period, involves a character with a split personality: One part is a racist, and the other is a bleeding-heart liberal.

The story’s socially relevant hook gives the role added heft. Ferrell has tried his hand at more serious roles, most markedly Stranger Than Fiction.

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Craig Zobel is set to rewrite, and then direct the comedy Loudermilk for star Jon Heder at Rogue Pictures. Heder, his identical twin brother Dan and their older brother Doug are producing through their Greasy Entertainment shingle.

Loudermilk centers on a Napoleon Dynamite-like eccentric who becomes contaminated with a substance that gives him obviously superpowers. But, the superpowers appear to be his Achilles heel.  

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Ed Helms and Bradley Cooper are set to have a “Hangover.”

The two are in the final negotiations to star in the bachelor-party comedy, about three buddies who lose the groom at their Vegas dance party two days before the wedding. The third lead role has yet to be cast. How about Jesse Bradford?

The film is on the fast track with cast and crew now entering preproduction.

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Fight Club was a hard movie for me to sit and watch while Ed Norton beat himself up.  The characterization both Brad Pitt and Norton was phenomenal. 

Now, Choke, based on a book by the same author of “Fight Club,” seems to me a similar movie where I am going to have a hard time taking in the whole story of this guy who is basically immoral. 

Just like Ed Norton’s character, I had a hard time being empathetic. But Norton’s craft gave me a reason to watch the Fight Club. 

Angelica Houston stars in Choke, which may prove a redeeming quality for me to watch the film.  I love watching Houston work on film, a true artist.

All in all, Choke is a guy movie, just like Fight Club is a guy movie. The themes don’t interest me. 

I can understand why some one would want to see Choke. If you take a look at the trailer the acting is very real and smooth. The story line is very easy to understand and follow, and the characters are funny, but do I want to spend close to two hours with them.  That’s a tough one to answer.

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Film company face-offs are not that uncommon. Last year there was the battle of the animated rats, Flushed Away (Dreamworks) and Ratatouille (Pixar/Disney), with the latter obviously winning. There was also the battle of large objects crashing into earth movies, with Armageddon and Deep Impact both released around the same time (whoever won, we lost). And it seems next year will see another face-off: the battle of the Sherlock Holmes movies.

Today the Hollywood Reporter announced that Robert “Iron Man” Downey Jnr has signed on to play Holmes in Guy Ritchie’s version of the movie. Last week saw the announcement of the first Sherlock Holmes revival, starring Borat creator Sacha Baron Cohen playing Holmes with Will Ferrell as Watson. The films will have differing takes on the traditional sleuth. While Ritchie’s film is based on a comic, and explores the more adventurous side of Holmes, Cohen’s Holmes will be playing for laughs.

So who will win? Well, after the hideous Swept Away and dull Revolver, I can’t help but feel that Ritchie is irredeemable. Sure, Downey Jnr is as hot as lava after the huge success of the entertaining Iron Man, but let’s not forget that he’s had more misses than hits in the past. My money is on the comic version. Since Borat Cohen is on a career high, and Ferrell will be an appealing support. Plus, the character of Holmes is so familiar, and the detective genre so exhausted, that it will be hard for a modern audience to take Holmes seriously. Indeed, a Holmes comedy was already made, Without a Clue, starring Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley, and while the premise was amusing (Holmes was a moronic poster-boy for Watson’s true brilliance), the delivery was sub-par. Let’s hope that Cohen and Ferrell can come up with a better film.

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Variety reports that choreographer Anne Fletcher is set to direct Disney comedy Matadors.

The film, penned by Mike Bender, is based on the true story of the Chicago Bulls’ troupe of male dancing cheerleaders. It will deal with a pair of basketball fans who form a cheerleading squad; there will be several major dance sequences.

Disney is reportedly in negotiations with the NBA to get the league’s cooperation on the project.

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Hamlet 2 Clip: Dana meets Amy’s character, Cricket Feldstein

Hamlet 2 is the comedy smash of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. In the irreverent comedy, a failed actor-turned-worse-high-school-drama teacher (Steve Coogan) rallies his Tucson, AZ students as he conceives and stages a politically incorrect musical sequel to Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

If you want to see an R-rated clip go to Yahoo.

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While Radcliffe may get all the attention, seeing as how he is Harry Potter, his sidekick Rupert Grint is in the spotlight today. He is set to star in the Belfast-set teen drama Cherrybomb for Generator Entertainment.

The story follows two friends who are rivals when it comes to getting the attention of a beautiful but manipulative girl.

Glen Leyburn and Lisa Barros D’Sa make their joint directorial debut on the project.

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Wouldn’t it be interesting to see what goes through the pets’ minds when their owners move in with another person? You won’t have to wonder for too long, however, as The Hollywood Reporter says that Walden Media has acquired the CG and live-action combined family-oriented comedy Housebroken, which deals with the topic.

The story focuses on a group of talking animals forced to live in the same house when two halves of the couple that owns them moves in together.

Adam Sztykiel will write the screenplay. The project has no release date at the moment.

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In more animated news, Sony Picture Worldwide has picked up US distribution rights to the $50 million CG-animated film Planet 51.

The film follows an Earth astronaut (Dwayne Johnson) who lands on Planet 51, thinking that he’s the first human to set foot on the planet. He discovers, much to his surprise, "little green people" living in a white picket-fence community reminiscent of 1950s America.

Jessica Biel, Gary Oldman, Justin Long and Sean William Scott also co-star. It is set for release on November 20, 2009.

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