Fresh from the news that he is going to be in X-Men: Days of Future Past, it's emerged that he has been cast in Hop Frog, an adaptation of an Edgar Allen Poe story to be directed by Mike Palansky, whose most famous previous work is probably the fantasy romance Penelope (starring Christina Ricci).
The Office is over, done. No, honestly, it is: here's the proof. It's completely finished. Its legacy will be as a show that came from very humble beginnings - a remake of a hit UK sitcom (The Office) that was aired as a mid-season replacement. In US network television, beginnings don't get much more humble than that. From there, however, the show became something much bigger, emerging and engulfing the shadow that it was created under - the shadow of the initially superior British sitcom - and eventually proving itself superior.
Fast & Furious 6 is released next week (apart from in the UK, where it is already out), but in the excitement of talking about the next installment, Fast & Furious 7, the filmmakers seem to have completely forgotten about their latest addition to the internationally successful Big Men in Fast Cars series. It's difficult to not feel sorry for poor Fast & Furious 6, not even born yet but already in the shadow of its more anticipated younger brother. It's how a twin must feel just before its twin is born, a twin that is also a good-looking genius.
As the second season finale of New Girl, "Elaine's Big Day" has a lot to cover. Like "Winston's Birthday" before it, there's a lot of story to get out of the way. Unlike "Winston's Birthday", however, parts of this episode feel rushed and skirted over to ensure that we hit all the major plot points required for the show to move forward into what will hopefully be an equally strong third season. For that to happen, a certain amount of threads need to be tied up by the end of "Elaine's Big Day" - Cece has to either marry Shivrang or reveal that she still loves Schmidt; Jess and Nick need to face up to how they really feel about each other; and Winston needs to somehow get to grips with his love of pranks. The show needs to do all this in an interesting, funny, and heartfelt way, in 22 minutes. No easy feat.
If you're sick of a world without Rio 2, then feel free to be sick no longer as the first trailer for the film has been released online, courtesy of Blue Sky Studios. The team behind the Ice Age series and Horton Hears A Who! are set to release Epic into cinemas next week, but have wasted no time in getting young mouths salivating even more than usual over the prospect of a second helping of crazy globetrotting bird adventures.
Shaquille O'Neal has gone ahead and trademarked, through his licensing company Mine O'Mine Inc. (the good people behind Shaq.com), the name Shaqfighter.
In a meeting with religious leaders that was ostensibly about gun control, Joe Biden agreed with Reverend Franklin Graham (son of Billy Graham and leading beacon of morality and decency) that sure, there's no legal reason that violent video games couldn't have a slightly higher rate of tax on them, which would of course go to victims of gun crime (unlike, say, a tax on guns).
It's par for the course in the high stakes world of television that if an idea is successful, it will be replicated across other countries and cultures. The US version of The Office is probably the most visible of these, being originally based on the eponymous UK sitcom created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the former taking the lead role. It's happened, to a greater or lesser extent, with tonnes of other shows - Spaced (UK) was turned into an unsuccessful US pilot, as was Coupling (UK) and The Thick of It (UK) - the last of those being reformatted by creator Armando Iannucci into the American critical darling and extremely funny show Veep, airing on HBO and starring Julia Louis-Dreyfuss.
Proving that he is nothing if not a hubristic shell of a man, Joss Whedon (director of The Avengers, third highest-grossing film of all time) has taken to his blog to respond to embarrassing rumours that he is due to receive a cool $100 million for The Avengers 2, the original of which made $1.5 billion worldwide.
Living in the world of Charlie Kaufman, as we all do, everything is ultimately Charlie Kaufman - as if to prove this, Charlie Kaufman is to adapt the Charlie Kaufman play Anomalisa, written and directed by Charlie Kaufman. The play concerns Michael, a motivational speaker who experiences great success in motivating others while leading a completely worthless and pointless life himself.