It looks like that collaboration between Jack Black and Todd Phillips won't be happening after all. Black pulled out of Phillips' Man-Witch, reportedly due to doubts about the director's commitment to make the supernatural comedy his next project. The film -- about a man who discovers he's a witch and enrolls in an all-female witch school -- is still in active development, with Phillips and his team looking for an actor to replace Black.

The other movie Phillips is mulling is the much more amusing-sounding Hangover, about a trio of guys who wake up after a rowdy Vegas bachelor party to discover that they've misplaced the groom. That could be legitimately funny with the right cast and a decent script -- though the fact that the writers are the guys behind the Martin Lawrence basketball "comedy" Rebound isn't too promising. Anyway, maybe losing Black will push Phillips toward doing Hangover first.

Meanwhile, all has mostly been quiet on the possibility of a sequel to Old School, the frat-house romp that rocketed Todd Phillips to the A-list. Though not the biggest Old School fan, I feel like that would be a more productive use of his time than what sounds like a half-baked Harry Potter parody -- especially after the relative anonymity of his last effort, School for Scoundrels.

Here's a funny one for your Friday: Remember that MTV Movie Awards spoof featuring Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr. and Jack Black? If not, head here to refresh your memory. In said video, Stiller was using his two Tropic Thunder co-stars to shoot a "viral video" for the upcoming flick; one to impress his consistently bored nephew. It was a funny video, and arguably the best spoof of this year's awards show. Of course, kids everywhere wanted to share the viral video featuring three of their favorite actors making a viral video -- but the only problem is that Viacom has forced YouTube to not only remove all uploads, but also suspend the YouTube account of the person(s) who uploaded it.

They've pulled the viral video they made! Looking around, the video is still available over at sites like Funny or Die, so perhaps this has more to do with Viacom's lawsuit against Google (who own YouTube) than it does pulling the video from all similar sites so that folks can only watch it on MTV. Because that would be weird ... and sorta ironic, don't ya think? Ahem.

[via Matt Griswold]

Jack Black, whose Kung Fu Panda opens this week, seemed to move awfully quickly from rising star to overexposed. His always-moving, rock 'n' roll persona seems to be everywhere, turning up in several movies a year, always pitched at the same high level. It's all too easy to concentrate on his most annoying performances, as lazy fast-talkers, or selfish schemers in films like Saving Silverman, Shallow Hal, Envy and The Holiday. But a closer look at his filmography shows more than a few samples of the Jack Black that we initially liked and elevated to stardom.

1. High Fidelity (2000)
This was the first time Black came onto my radar, although he had previously been in at least 30 other movies and TV shows. It's arguably the first time he tapped into the Jack Black persona for the length of an entire movie, and he was nicely fitted in the mix between cool, confused John Cusack and Todd Louiso (as the withdrawn music nerd). His was a supporting role, rather than a lead, which is the best place for a character actor of his caliber. Moreover, Black played a nerd with a wide-ranging knowledge of music, implying that he was at least using his brain for something (as opposed to many of his other films). As for his performance, he showed enough natural, unhinged exuberance (especially in his surprise rendition of "Let's Get It On") that, frankly, he deserved an Oscar nomination.

Finally, some good news for all those DC fans! Producer Donald DeLine talked to the boys of CHUD about the long languishing Green Lantern film. While nothing has kicked into high-gear yet, the future is bright for Hal Jordan.

DeLine confirmed that Jack Black is no longer attached to the lead role, which should make all fans sigh with relief. And it is no longer being touted as a comedic movie. Isn't it nice when Hollywood wakes up and realizes they've wasted time on a really dumb idea?

They are currently awaiting the first draft of a script by Greg Berlanti, which DeLine was hopeful would be on his desk very soon. They are looking to make it a sensible origin story of Hal Jordan, with all the heroics and aliens the story requires. Okay, I'm guessing on the alien part, but I don't really see them changing that.

Nor has the death of Justice League Mortal affected this Green Lantern movie -- as seems to be the case with all the Justice League characters, since they were operating on completely different wavelengths.

While the 2008 MTV Movie Awards was probably more like one long commercial for summer movies than it was an actual awards show, there were some funny, memorable bits featuring old friends and a few clips worth mentioning for those who missed it last night. (Anyone else catch Brendan Fraser screaming like a lunatic into the camera on the red carpet, promoting Journey 3-D, while they were interviewing SJP about Sex and the City? I mean, dude, I know this show is all about promoting your movies, but calm the F down -- even SJP looked a tad freaked out.)

But anyway, my favorite bit of the night was a tie between watching a Wayne's World reunion and the Tropic Thunder viral spoof by Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr. and Jack Black. Surprisingly, it wasn't even any of the three who stole the show; it was, instead, the kid playing Stiller's nephew. Hilarious. Watch the Wayne's World routine above, then head after the jump for the full Tropic Thunder video, Megan Fox looking extremely hot and freaked out by a naked Rainn Wilson and the footage you DIDN'T see of Seth Rogen and James Franco smoking a "pretend" joint on stage. I'd like to think the bit would've been funnier if the cameras were actually allowed within 700 feet of the stage and they didn't cutaway to several different actors who weren't laughing ... at all. In fact, Downey Jr. looked kind of insulted. Not the best anti-drug advertisement I've ever seen, but what the hey ...

Something in the water over in France has got Jack Black loose-lipped. First he lets it out that Angelina is indeed having twins. Now, according to film-industry.biz, he's claiming there's a sequel to School of Rock in the works. There's even a script already written, and Black is anxious to return to the role of music teacher Dewey Finn. But it's not a done deal just yet. As he explained from the Cannes Film Festival: "In a few weeks we have to decide if we go through with the project or not."

I may be one of the few people who didn't love the original School of Rock, but then, I'm one of those curmudgeonly fellows who can't stand Jack Black in anything. Of course, after watching his Eddie Murphy parody in the awesome new R-rated trailer for Tropic Thunder, I'm starting to think he could do some right in the film world. Or, maybe he has that one really funny moment and a whole lot of obnoxious moments, as usual.

And when I say ridiculous, I mean "WTF is going on in this flick!?" I'm not sure when this new red band trailer for Tropic Thunder went off the deep end: Was it when Ben Stiller took a young child who was stabbing him in the back (literally) and threw him off a bridge, or was it when Stiller was holding up the decapitated head of a soldier and sticking his tongue up to its guts. Oh, I'm totally not kidding about any of that, either -- this one looks completely out of control. Kudos to Stiller; for awhile there, it looked like he was way past his prime. With Tropic Thunder, something tells me the entire crew downed a case of "something real good" and said, "Screw it, let's just go absolutely nuts with this one and really freak people out."

Tropic Thunder stars Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr. (who's cursing in every scene ... as a black man), Brandon T. Jackson and Jay Baruchel as a group of actors shooting a Platoon-esque war film in the jungle. When that film's director (as played by Steve Coogan) decides these guys need to be "in the sh*t," the gang wind up face to face with an army of real soldiers. I can't even begin to explain this trailer -- it's probably the most disturbing, yet oddly hilarious piece of marketing material I've seen all year.

Go here. Enter your age. Let us know what you think. Tropic Thunder hits theaters on August 15.

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Perhaps the best thing about Kung Fu Panda is that it's an action comedy that doesn't skimp on the action. Dreamworks Animation's latest effort may stick out a little on the Red Carpet at Cannes -- where it's screening out of competition -- but it's certainly a well-made kid's film that earns high points for how directors John Stevenson and Mark Osborne clearly crafted and contemplated its look and feel with ambition and style. Anyone can make a computer-animated cartoon with fuzzy animals doing kung fu; you have to be at least a little inspired to make a computer-animated cartoon featuring fuzzy animals doing kung fu in widescreen Cinemascope. ...

Kung Fu Panda opens with a rousing, stylish action sequence, as a narrator (Jack Black, in full-on Tenacious D exposition mode) explains how "Legend tells of a legendary kung fu warrior whose kung fu skills were legendary. ..." But then, the heroic panda we've seen unleashing paws of power on the big screen ... wakes up; it was just a dream. Then Po the panda (Black), whose dreams of kung fu glory are the counterpoint to his unsatisfying life, gets ready for his day of helping his father Mr. Ping (James Wong) sell noodles to the people of the Valley of Peace.

Imagine the above, with a round white boy (in, I hope, the same duds). Or one round furry dude panda.

It was inevitable, really. The Hollywood Reporter posts that Jack Black and Cee-Lo (of Gnarls Barkley) have covered Carl Douglas' "Kung Fu Fighting" for Black's upcoming Kung Fu Panda. At the very least, it should be a bit better than Chris Tucker's version for Rush Hour 3.

Cee-Lo says: "It was inspiring and an honor to have the opportunity to reintroduce the record to a brand new audience, sprinkled with a little of me on top." Meow! However, I really doubt that their cover will inspire young tykes unfamiliar with the song to find out that it's a Carl Douglas tune, and go out to hear more of his music. In reality, we can probably wait 10 years and then hear people say: "Hey, isn't 'Kung Fu Fighting' that Jack Black song?"

You can hear the track on May 27th by picking up the soundtrack or downloading it. As for the film, which also uses the voices of Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, and Dustin Hoffman, it's coming out on June 6.

Just when you thought it couldn't get worse for Lindsay Lohan, Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily reports that Lohan has been dropped from the true-life crime flick, Manson's Girls. According to DHD, "people associated with the movie told agents that Lohan quickly became more of a deficit than an asset when they discovered that they couldn't find any name actresses who wanted to co-star with her. (And even some name actors...) So now Lindsay is off the pic."

Ouch, that can't be good for her self-esteem, although the gossip gal in me would have liked to hear the names of some of those "name actors".

Both of the upcoming animated releases that aren't Wall-E or Space Chimps got new trailers yesterday. Here's one for Igor (and here's a link to the poster we premiered a few weeks ago), and here's one for Kung Fu Panda.

Kung Fu Panda looks like it'll be just a step or two above -- *shudder* -- Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Igor, on the other hand, looks like a charmer: the premise is inherently nerdy, requiring viewers to think back to the original Frankenstein films (or at least Young Frankenstein, or Van Helsing in a pinch) to get the joke, and the trailer has a few big laughs.

The biggest upside of Kung Fu Panda coming out on June 6th: those of us who frequent AMC Theaters will no longer have to endure the Kung Fu Panda-themed pre-movie interlude exhorting viewers to shut up. I'm not sure how many more times I can listen to Jack Black tell me that he can hear me texting before I have an aneurysm. But I guess I should be grateful AMC is no longer airing that horrid Three Doors Down "Citizen Soldier" video pimping the National Guard (because no one screams "role model" to teenagers like the lead singer of Three Doors Down). That thing gave me nightmares.

I really think that if Tropic Thunder lives up to our expectations, this may very well be the "Summer of Downey." For starters, I'm already sold on Iron Man, and believe me, it has nothing to do with a love of men in big metal suits. Paramount Pictures has released three new character posters for the action comedy and there is just something about Downey's whacked out expression that brings a smile to my face. Although to be fair, I'm steering clear of the whole 'black face' debate until I actually see the movie. Especially since it seems a little early in the game to start crying "racist" when no one has even seen Downey's performance yet.

Thunder was written and directed by Ben Stiller, who also stars as a spoiled action star cast in a big budget war flick that is spiraling out of control. Tired of dealing with spoiled stars and unruly locations, the director (played by Steve Coogan) decides to drop his actors in the middle of a real armed conflict in hopes of adding some 'verité' to the film. Of course, the actors are all clueless of the fact they are no longer in the cozy confines of a movie set and wackiness ensues.

So place your bets: Do you think Tropic Thunder is going to be this summer's big comedy? We'll find out if Stiller can live up to the hype when the film opens in theaters on August 15th. Check out larger versions of all three posters, plus additional photos from the film in the gallery below.

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This will no doubt be an illegal movie forever. After seeing it at the UC Theater in the summer of '82, I recently found a copy on a bootleg VHS for $1 at a Friends of the Library sale, still burned with the Sundance Channel bug. In today's cinema, much is made of the nostalgia value of the 1980s soundtrack: a famous example being Tears for Fears' "Head Over Heels" during Donnie Darko's opening. You can have your MTV, though, since URGH! A Music War was the soundtrack to my 1980s. Hey, what a surprise, no Duran Duran, no INXS, no Soft Cell covering a Gloria Jones soul classic and convincing a history-impaired generation that they wrote it. And yet it's clear why this film failed.

As a business scheme URGH seems, in 2008 hindsight, a uniquely quick way to burn a fortune. The film documents second-wave punk and New Wave bands playing from LA to London, editing them together without any particular zeitgeisty event like a music festival. So: play it a little under a real kiss-of-death title, and then wait to be deafened by the wails of bands, managers and lawyers zooming in to fight over the non-existant money. The Police were the headliners, opening and closing the film. They wrap up the film, too; you can see drummer Miles Copeland wearing an URGH! T-shirt. Is this perhaps all he was paid for this film? There are mostly cinematic performances here, and we see how much was lost by the fact that the Industry couldn't figure out a way to use their talents in the movies. Here's a key to the best of the show, omitting slurs of forgotten bands who perished long years ago.

Now that we have all gotten over the initial shock of seeing Robert Downey Jr. in 'black face,' we can all settle down and direct our attention to all of the other reasons why Ben Stiller's action comedy Tropic Thunder is going to be pretty high on the list of must-see summer flicks. Slash Film now has two new pictures from the comedy with the whole cast in tow.

Stiller came up with the idea of Tropic Thunder while he was working on Empire of the Sun with Steven Spielberg. Thunder centers on a group of spoiled actors making an expensive Vietnam flick. Inexplicably, the group find themselves in the middle of a real war and they are forced to become real live soldiers. The all-star comedy cast includes Stiller, Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey (in a part originally intended for Owen Wilson), and Steve Coogan as the wacked-out "Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now" role.

While these photos may not be as much fun as the teaser that was just released, I'm sure this is just the first of many media releases for the film. If you are over 18, I highly recommend checking out the teaser -- with possibly the best tag line for an action film in the history of the movies. If not, you'll just have to figure out how to sneak into the theater with the rest of us when Tropic Thunder lands in theaters on August 15th.

I may not be too thrilled with the thought of male modeling sequels, but I'm itching to see what Ben Stiller makes with his first directing gig since Zoolander. The flick is Tropic Thunder, and that image above is part of the first look released by Entertainment Weekly. This time, the focus is actors, and the comedy follows a group "of self-indulgent stars cast in the modern equivalent of Apocalypse Now." However, the director (Steve Coogan) and writer (Nick Nolte) get fed up with them and ship them off to the jungle to fend for themselves.

Meanwhile, Stiller and those involved are hoping this comedy doesn't start an uproar.