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What won’t Jack Black be? From rockstar to a caveman, he’s been them all, but how about being a witch? According to scribe Josh Stolberg’s official blog, Jack Black will be doing just that in Man-Witch which has headed into production.

“It’s looking like Man-Witch is a go at Warner Bros,” Stolberg wrote. “I can’t say much about it at this point because the casting hasn’t been officially announced but it’s looking really, really good.”

Stolberg is best known for writing Good Luck Chuck and the upcoming Piranha 3D. The film will follow Black, a schoolteacher, who suddenly discovers he has witch-like abilities. He is taken in by a coven and is persuaded to attend a school for witches, only to discover all his classmates are girls.

Getting over The Hangover, Todd Philips is expected to direct.

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The latest addition to the cast of Gulliver’s Travels is Amanda Peet, who will play the role of Gulliver’s editor and potential romantic interest.

The film is a modern retelling of Jonathan Swift’s classic story. It follows the writer Lemuel Gulliver (played by Jack Black) who ends up on the secret island of Lilliput, home to tiny people.

Other cast members include Jason Segel and Emily Blunt.

Rob Letterman (Monsters vs. Aliens) is set to direct the film.

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Upcoming comedy Year One is stuck with a R-rating it seems, as MPAA’s Classification and Rating Appeals Board upheld its given rating despite producer Judd Apatow and director/co-writer Harold Ramis appearing before them to argue for a more lenient rating.

The comedy stars Jack Black and Michael Cera as a couple of cave-men who travel through the ancient world.

The appeals board decided to keep the R-rating for “some sexual content and language.” It is slated for release on June 19.

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Year Onetrailer seems rather crazy and silly, but Jack Black and Michael Cera are hilarious with the direction of Harold Ramis. Is the Paul Rudd as Able?

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The subgenre of kung fu action film has had a lot of strange variants over the years.  Whether it’s the historical fiction of Once Upon A Time In China or the mock-drunken antics of Jackie Chan in the various Drunken Masters, or even the strange Mystery Science Theatre-esque strangeness of Kung Pow: Enter The Fist.

But possibly even more bizarre than even Steve Oedekerk’s tongue-laden vision of kung fu is the anthropomorphic animal concept advanced by Kung Fu Panda.

Featuring Jack Black as a fat, lazy fanboy panda working in a noodle shop, Kung Fu Panda offers up the Valley of Peace in the midst of a problem.  Seems one of the greatest kung fu masters the valley has ever known has just broken out of the deep mountain prison he’s been stored in and he’s on his way back to the valley for revenge against one of the kung fu masters still living there—his original teacher.  Left with little option, as the master in question is still powerful, but aging and possibly no longer a match for the fearsome rogue master, the search begins for the legendary Dragon Warrior, a supreme kung fu master who will restore peace to the valley.  But the Dragon Warrior is, not surprisingly, not exactly who we expect it to be.

They sort of gave that particular chunk of the plot away in the title itself—it’s Kung Fu Panda, for crying out loud.  If the Panda doesn’t learn Kung Fu at some point the title really is sort of nonsense, now isn’t it?  But, okay—we’re not exactly here for that sort of thing.  Most of us are here to watch Jack Black do voice acting for a tubby lazy fanboy panda, because this is the kind of thing that Jack Black’s been playing all along, except not quite so hairy.

Seriously—if you stop and think about it there’s not much difference between the panda and Dewey Finn and JB from Tenacious D. Sure, the panda will never pick up a guitar, but kung fu is this panda’s guitar, and Black puts the same basic spirit behind the panda’s love as he did into his guitarist characters’ love.

Meanwhile, the plot itself is at least fairly entertaining, and for those who shy away from animated fare believing it “just for kids” are missing out on a pretty surprising treat.  If it weren’t for the animated animals, this might well have been a fairly solid kung fu picture.  Frankly, we don’t get a whole lot of those these days—the last one I remember was Kung Fu Hustle, and that was four years ago this April.

It’s nice to get some new kung fu that we don’t have to import; the subgenre is sorely underserved, and in this days of more-of-the-same you’d think more places would go back to the kung fu epic to get some fast cash.  The lack of titles lately is deeply surprising, but one thing is true.  Kung Fu Panda was not half bad, and definitely worth a couple hours to see.

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Twentieth Century Fox has set in motion the big screen adaptation of “Gulliver’s Travels,” with Jack Black playing the title role.  Rob Letterman (Shark Tale) is set to direct the classic Jonathan Swift story that will have a contemporary twist.

According to the trades, the tale pivots on Lemuel Gulliver, a free-spirited travel writer who, on an assignment to the Bermuda Triangle, suddenly finds himself a giant among men when he washes ashore on the hidden island of Lilliput, home to a population of industrious, yet tiny, people.

Once Jack Black committed to the film the studio quickly put the film in motion. Filming begins in March.

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DreamWorks Animation officially confirmed a sequel to its animated hit Kung Fu Panda is in the works with a release date of June 3, 2011.

The film reunites Jack Black as kung fu fan Po, Angelina Jolie and other members of the original voice cast. Kung Fu Panda sequel will be released in 3-D — the new standard for all DWA movies starting next year — on regular and Imax screens worldwide. Awesome!!!

Jennifer Yu Helson, who was head of story on Panda, is promoted to director for the sequel – go girl.  

If you look into the crystal ball of movie marketing, the 2011 date means that Panda will be sharing the summer with Disney/Pixar’s Cars 2, which Disney moved from a 2012 release to summer 2011 last week.

The original Panda grossed more than $626 million worldwide and is DWA’s most successful nonsequel. It will be released on two-disc DVD and Blu-ray, containing a new companion story Secrets of the Furious Five, on Nov. 9.

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Those fine reporters at The Hollywood Reporters send word that Jack Black and Kung Fu Panda writers Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger and teaming up for an untitled live-action comedy film that will poke fun at The Bourne Identity.

The story will see Black, an American, washing up on the shores of Cuba with no idea of who he is and how he got there. He finally comes to the conclusion that he is a superspy, but in reality he is quite far from being one.

The project is currently in the ‘idea’ phase.

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