I feel like I’m sweating red bulls and fondling my crotch to the beat of house music today, because Brett Ratner’s hot new project just got more hotter.  Ya boy Alfred Itchcock’s Tower Heist just added Eddie Murphy to the cast.  The Rat Man production will hopefully continue Murphy’s string of hits that now includes, Norbit, Imagine That, and the incomparable Meet Dave, and will give him someone with whom to swap tranny stories on set.

Eddie Murphy is set to join Ben Stiller and Alan Alda in Tower Heist, the Brett Ratner-directed caper film for Universal Pictures. Murphy has been mentioned as a possible participant going back to the film’s original configuration as an African American version of Ocean’s Eleven, when it was called Trump Heist. Trump was dropped as was that casting equation, and now, the storyline deals with operations and maintenance workers in a luxury Manhattan high-rise whose pension funds were looted by a Bernie Madoff-like  Wall Street crook, who is living high style in a penthouse apartment, under house arrest. Led by an overworked building manager (Stiller), the workers use their knowledge of the inner workings of the building to rip him off. [Deadline]

It’s strange to say it, but it’s looking like a Brett Ratner project might actually get made. After years of lazily smoking pot and eating nachos and playing XBox, it’s nice to see Brett Ratner finally digging right in there and grabbing a project by the short and curlies.  When you get that creative itch, you’ve just gotta scratch it.

Here’s a picture of Courtney Love and Brett Ratner last night at the premiere of Money Never Sleeps (Wall Street 2) in New York.  Gosh, she looks so elegant, I wonder where she went to finishing school.  But her and the Rat Man, that’s a match made in crotch-fondling heaven (the most fun kind of heaven).  One thing that disappointed me about it, though,  The Rat isn’t doing his trademark crotch fondle in the picture. The photographer must’ve been using some kind of high-speed film or something.  Anyway, I thought it would be fun to have both their trademark poses in the same photo, so I went ahead and had it digitally remastered.

DOUBLE CROTCH FONDLE, WHAT DOES IT MEAN!?!?

[original picture via MovieLine]

Seeing Ben Stiller get puked on and rehash decade-old jokes in the Little Fockers trailer was pretty sad.  Luckily, his career takes a giant leap forward today with the news that he’ll soon be doing a film called Tower Heist with our nation’s finest filmmaker.  I speak of course of Brett Ratner.  Or as I like to call him, Alfred Itchcock.

Ben Stiller stars as the overworked manager of a luxury building who, along with other staff, lost their pensions to a Bernie Madoff-like Wall Street crook. It so happens that the fraudster is being held under house arrest in the luxury penthouse apartment upstairs, and the manager and four cohorts figure a heist will make them whole.

The project originally got set up under the title Trump Heist, when the intention was for an African American ensemble to target The Donald. Trump got evicted, as did the African American cast idea.

“It has become the quintessential New York heist movie, where a bunch of blue collar employees in a tower building pull off the ultimate heist,” Ratner told me. [yes, who could forget all those blue collar working stiffs who lost their money to Bernie Madoff. -Ed] The move away from Trump really began with Ted Griffin, who, Ratner reminds, originally wrote Ocean’s Eleven for him to direct.  “I didn’t get to do that movie, I did Rush Hour instead, but I went back to Ted to do a rewrite, and he wanted to start over. His pitch was so good that I took it to Brian [Grazer], who said, ‘let’s get it right.’ I brought the script to Ben on the Little Fockers set, and said this is perfect for you. He was looking at other projects like Mr. Popper’s Penguins (which went to Jim Carrey), I asked Noah Baumbach  to do some specific character work for Ben. Then my Rush Hour guy Jeff Nathanson brought it home.” [Deadline]

Ratner continued, “Jeff Nathanson brought it home.  After that we played xBox for while, got hella stoned and just went to town on some Totino’s pizza rolls. Then I passed out for a while.  I’m not sure where the script went after that.  I think my bro Steve might have it.  Yeah, that’s it, you should probably ask Steve.”

Oh, Brett Ratner.  Attached to so many projects, yet so few that actually go anywhere.  Before we get into today’s news, let’s give the Rat Man a visit from the Ghost of Variety Articles Past, shall we?

• Ratner to exec produce an “edgy Snow White.”
• Ratner to direct a segment in a sketch movie in which Hugh Jackman will play a guy with balls on his chin.
• The Rat Man to produce a reboot of House Party.
• Attached to direct what was once a “black Ocean’s 11” but now has Noah Baumbach writing a script for Ben Stiller.
• Producer for a live-action Hong Kong Phooey.
• Was once attached to direct Conan the Barbarian remake.
• Producing one of two competing John Delorean biopic projects
• Negotiating to direct a Milli Vanilli biopic
• Attached to direct Youngblood, based on the comic book
• Talking about directing a remake of Beverly Hills Cop
• Attached to direct Gods of War

And that’s barely going back two years.  But that’s not today’s story.  Tell us, Variety, where did Brett Ratner’s wheel of dead-end turds land today?

Ratner’s producing “The Unknowns,” based on the comic created by Mark A. Altman (“DOA: Dead Or Alive”), Steve Kriozere (“NCIS”) and model/actress Monica Olsen.
Story centers around Alexis Davenport, who while living a seemingly ordinary life discovers she was actually once the highly skilled and deadly leader of a mysterious team called The Unknowns and must learn the secret of why her memories were erased and by who.
“We think ‘The Unknowns’ will be a great new comic book/action franchise,” said Ratner, who’s in preproduction as a producer on New Line’s “Horrible Bosses.”

An ordinary person who finds out she used to be a spy?  You’re right, Brett Ratner, that is new.  But are you sure the world is ready for an original story such as this?  Maybe she could also be a tough kid from the inner city who succeeds against all odds.

It’s pretty obvious that any sexy lady would want to get her lady parts fondle bombed by the Rat man.  He’s getting really good at XBox, and every night before she cuts up hot dogs to put in his mac and cheese, his mom tells him he’s a special boy.  Right before he eats, he likes to shout “I’ll do it!” into a toy cell phone.  It’s adorable.  Take it away, Page 6:

One woman just isn’t enough for Brett Ratner. Waiting for a date at Katsuyah in LA, the filmmaker was chatting up four ladies at a table nearby. When his date arrived, Ratner couldn’t keep his attention away from the other girls, leaving his date looking awkward, a spy says. He paid for the women’s tab and offered his phone number in front of his date so they could text-message him when he returns from London. Ratner’s rep did not respond to a request for comment.

God only knows the carnal delights that await a woman who beds down with a man known to live-tweet Jo-Bros concerts.  I imagine it’s like being charged by an angry rhino.  An angry sex rhino.  Anyway, if you boys are looking for pointers, my sources tell me Ratner used his favorite, tried-and-true pick-up line: “Are you gonna finish that?”