Every year, a dude named Frank Leonard puts out the Black List, a list of the best unproduced screenplays going around town, as voted on by Hollywood types. You’d expect them to highlight scripts like Being John Malkovich, a work of genius that had been going around for years that everyone loved but no one knew how to make. Instead, in typical Hollywood fashion, it seems to have become a list of scripts that everyone knows a studio is going to make anyway and might become hits, thus becoming a list of scripts people bet on so they can brag about how smart they are later (you can see the most recent list here).

One such blacklist script, The Ex-Factor, recently picked up Ken Jeong as star and producer, and has since been titled “The Chung Factor.” IT SOUNDS GREAT BECAUSE WE’VE SEEN IT BEFORE!

The movie is about a nice guy who meets the girl of his dreams after being unlucky in love. But because he’s afraid of screwing up the relationship, he takes advice from an offbeat relationship coach, played by Jeong.
As it turns out, the coach is actually the woman’s ex-boyfriend and is out to sabotage the relationship and win her back.
The script, formerly called “The Ex-Factor,” was on the 2005 Black List of best unproduced scripts. [TheWrap]

It’s Hitch meets Something About Mary with an Asian twist! It’ll be like that South Park episode where Cartman gives Jimmy advice through a headset while he’s out on a date! Except without all the jokes about how that concept is 30 years old! You screamed when Will Smith taught Kevin James how to dance… You delighted when Sinbad taught Phil Hartman to loosen up… This summer, you’ll squeal when Ken Jeong teaches Zach Braff math.

I think the most surprising part of this story is that a rom-com script called “The Ex-Factor” was only six years old.

Once he was done governating, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s acting schedule filled up fast. He got involved with The Governator, something called Cry Macho, a Terminator reboot, maybe a Twins sequel, and God knows what else. But that was before he got caught shooting his sperm in every Mexican west of the Mississippi. Back in May, he announced he was putting all film projects on hold until further notice, until he could figure out which brown kids seemed most suspiciously gap-toothed and ass loving. (Arnie’s Éses, I imagine he calls them).

His personal affairs must be in order now, because last night I received a press release from Lionsgate announcing a new Schwarzenegger project called Last Stand, a “high-octane chase story” from the director of The Good, The Bad, and The Weird. QUICK, COVER THE MAKE-UP GIRLS WITH PLASTIC!

Korean action-suspense master Kim Jee-Woon (A TALE OF TWO SISTERS, THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD) will direct the film, which is to be based on a spec script by Andrew Knauer that was subsequently rewritten by Jeffrey Nachmanoff.
Schwarzenegger will be starring as Sheriff Owens, a man who has resigned himself to a life of fighting what little crime takes place in sleepy border town Sommerton Junction after leaving his LAPD post following a bungled operation that left him wracked with failure and defeat after his partner was crippled.   After a spectacular escape from an FBI prisoner convoy, the most notorious, wanted drug kingpin in the hemisphere is hurtling toward the border at 200 mph in a specially outfitted car with a hostage and a fierce army of gang members.  He is headed, it turns out, straight for Summerton Junction, where the whole of U.S. law enforcement will have their last opportunity to make a stand and intercept him before he slips across the border forever.  At first reluctant to become involved, and then counted out because of the perceived ineptitude of his small town force, Owens ultimately accepts responsibility for one of the most daring face offs in cinema history.

Well that sounds like every action movie ever. But it’s Arnold. And everyone who’s seen The Good, the Bad, and the Weird seems to love it. And it started with a spec script, which is always better than a project that started as a pitch, so who knows. At the very least, I bet it’s the first Arnold movie synopsis ever to incorporate the phrase “perceived ineptitude.”"Hey, Sully, remembah when when you counted out my force for perceived eenept-eetude? …Your findings vere wracked wiss erroneous conclusions.” (*drops Sully off cliff, throws Thesaurus down with him*)

If you haven’t heard of ‘Fred’ by now, or, God forbid heard Fred’s voice, consider yourself lucky. Fred Figglehorn is a kid named Lucas Cruikshank who puts videos of himself speaking in a high voice on YouTube. By some structural anomaly as yet unexplained by science, this high-pitched voice goes straight to the pleasure center of the brain of anyone under 12, and as a result, Fred’s videos have been viewed a total of 700 MILLION TIMES. Trust me, this is not because Fred is some kind of evil genius. As he told the NY Times last year, “he did not model the character on anyone in particular and doesn’t give a whole lot of thought to the process. He said it took him and his siblings about 30 minutes to make one of the two-minute videos, which he watches once and forgets.”

Accidental fame is the new fame.  Anyway, you’d think we as adults would be more than capable of correcting this anomaly, all doing our part to provide a severe beating to any pre-pubescent punk who insists on polluting the world with Fred’s aural malaria.  But since everyone is such a spineless, morally bankrupt opportunist these days, we’re giving him a movie instead.  Check that, ANOTHER movie.  This time in 3D.  Thanks, Lionsgate.  Wait, is there a way to make the sound in 3D? I need something to finally push me over the edge.

Lucas Cruikshank, the teen actor who turned his alter-ego character Fred Figglehorn into a YouTube hit and a TV movie for Nickelodeon, will star in a 3D movie for Lionsgate.
John Fortenberry (“Blue Mountain State”) is directing “Night of the Living Fred.” David A. Goodman (“Family Guy”) wrote the script. Production is now under way in Los Angeles.
Cruikshank also will star in a half-hour Nickelodeon series. [TheWrap]

Blue Mountain State, of course. I think I can imagine how this went down:

LIONSGATE EXEC 1: We need someone to direct a movie.  It’s a great opportunity and we have to strike while the iron is hot.  But I must warn you: this movie will be aimed solely at children. Its content will be pure anathema to any human adult above 12; slow, severe soul-torture to any being with a functioning cerebral cortex and a drop of humanity.

LIONSGATE EXEC 2: CALL SPIKE TV!

Lionsgate just released the new trailer for the Conan the Barbarian remake, starring Baywatch Hawaii wunderkind Jason Momoa and Ron I’m-in-every-genre-movie Perlman. Additional gossip fact for the ladies: Momoa has two children with former Cosby Show actress Lisa Bonet, the youngest named “Nakoa-Wolf Manakauapo Namakaeha Momoa.”  GRRR, VOWELS! Not to mention the rare first-name hyphen.  Looks like you just got served, last-name hyphenated people. Your hippie parents must be so embarrassed.

Conan opens August 19th, and it was directed by Marcus Nispel, of Pathfinder and Friday the 13th remake fame, so it’ll probably be really good (*armpit fart to indicate sarcasm*).  Incidentally, Marcus Nispel looks like this:

…and Jason Momoa looks like this:

…so I imagine a lot of their conversations began with “Whoa, bro.”

Anyway, I know I’ve been calling him “Conan the Samoan” because it rhymes (he’s actually half Hawaiian), but the truth is, I couldn’t care less whether Conan is played by a white dude (or is played by anyone at all, for that matter).  The incredibly complex plot is that of a man who walks around the desert whacking people with his giant sword, which is clearly a Freudian stand-in for his dong (isn’t everything?).  So I guess the bigger question is: shouldn’t it be a black guy? I say yes. But what do I know? I’m just a guy who would enjoy watching a black guy whack people with his dong.

What to expect when you're not expecting the Spanish Inquisition

I was sitting here feeling bad that I’d covered barely any movie news this afternoon, so then I start going through the trade news, and what’s the first story I see? The writer of Whip It has been hired to write the film adaptation of What to Expect When You’re Expecting.  How will they adapt a guide book with no narrative into a film, you ask?  Why, it will be like He’s Just Not That Into and Valentine’s Day, of course.  Relationships. Kids in hats.  You know, stupid sh*t, for chicks. 

Lionsgate plans to turn Heidi Murkoff’s bestselling how-to manual What to Expect When You’re Expecting into a blueprint for a romantic comedy, and has hired Whip It! scribe Shauna Cross to rewrite the first draft by Heather Hach.The book has sold north of 16 million copies, and is being turned into a pic in the vein of Love Actually, where 5 couples experience the surprises that happen when a stork visit is imminent. [Deadline]

Sounds fascinating.  I can’t wait until they option Encyclopedia Britannica Volume G.  According to the press release I just composed with my butt, the fact-based drama promises to bring together five interrelated, alliterative historical events in the style of Avatar and The 300, with a screenplay adapted by Hollywood hit maker Allan Loeb.  Awesome.  Well, there’s your trade news story for the day.  This story is the movie blogger equivalent of “daddy drinks because you cry.”  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have fainting kitten videos to watch.

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