Out of Control

They sure pulled this one together fast.

Office Christmas Party, an edgy comedy announced and cast and sent into production this past winter for a release at Christmastime this year, is absolutely gonna meet its deadline.

How do I know? Well, we have a trailer now.

Starring Deadpool’s T.J. Miller, Ghostbusters’ Kate McKinnon (in full cat-lady mode, from the looks of it), and X-Men: Apocalypse’s Olivia Munn, the project also features Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman, and Emmy nominee Courtney B. Vance (FX’s The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story), and chronicles the human-resources nightmare holiday party a group of employees led by Miller throw after his shark of a CEO (L’Aniston) announces the branch of the company they all work for will be closing in the new year.

You can only imagine the shenanigans.

Hope they don’t put a red-band trailer out for this one. Keep a little bit o’ the mystery, knowwhatImean.

Office Christmas Party will be out on Dec. 9.

Photo: Deadline.com.

Hollywood’s New It Couple

Rock Hudson, Doris Day.

Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire.

Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman?

Looks another classic movie coupling is very much developing right before our eyes.

The real-life friends and frequent co-stars (hey, Horrible Bosses 2, hey) are set to reunite not only to throw an Office Christmas Party but to play Significant Others, too. Bateman would direct the latter, the story of an on-the-rise type-A businesswoman (L’Aniston, natch) who is the final round of interviews for a big-time CEO position.

The dramatic hijinks kick in when the company asks to vet her husband. Uh oh, indeed.

Both stars would produce the project as well.

Photo: HollywoodNewsSource.com.

Who’s Bringin’ the Punch?

Jennifer Aniston is on a holidays kick.

Not only is she starring in Garry Marshall’s upcoming Mother’s Day, my favorite Friend is also getting ready to throw an Office Christmas Party.

And L’Aniston will reunite with her friend and Horrible Bosses 2 co-star, Jason Bateman, to do so. The pair will be featured in the movie, which is coming together fast for a December premiere, alongside Deadpool’s T.J. Miller and SNL’s Kate McKinnon.

Mmm...does their employer not hire any people of color?

Will Speck and Josh Gordon (Blades of Glory) are directing.

Photo: MarieClaire.com.

Obsessive Old Acquaintance

My, my – look at that Joel Edgerton, getting his director on.

The Aussie actor – who has been dipping his toes in the producer and writing pools for years – is making his debut as a feature film director this summer, with The Gift.

Yep, Edgerton called all the shots for the thriller, which stars Jason Bateman and Transcendence’s Rebecca Hall as a married couple that sees their lives turned upside down after he has a simple-enough casual run-in with an old high school mate that soon turns into a veritable s--- show creep fest.

The Jason Blum-produced The Gift is set to open on July 31.

Photo: EW.com.

Another Epic Fail

They’re baaack...and she’s at it again.

They would be Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, and Charlie Day, a trio of funnies that hit it big when they played these bumbling buffoons trying to get even with their Horrible Bosses (Jennifer Aniston and Kevin Spacey among them) in 2011 (you know...by killing ’em). And she would be L’Aniston herself, a survivor of the sleeper original black comedy who – thank goodness! – lived to see another day as a horny D.D.S. from hell who still very much would like nothing more than to get into Day’s character’s pants.

They all have reprised their roles for Horrible Bosses 2, a just-alright follow-up to a quite-original and energetic raunchfest.

This time, though, the trio’s characters – Nick, Kurt, and Dale – find themselves in a position of power, in a place where they can behave in deplorable ways. Not that they weren’t in the first movie; murder is not cool, kids. And not that they would (to their employees), anyway.

Directed by Sean (Sex Drive) Anders, who took over for Seth Gordon, the sequel sees them kinda-pathetically trying to make it on their own, as their own bosses, as the inventors of a novelty attachment for the shower called the Shower Buddy (think of the mechanics of a carwash...but for the bathroom!). They are so gung-ho about succeeding that they forget that they are, essentially, a bunch of dummies, and they fall for the too-good-to-be-true offer they get from a wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing investor portrayed by two-time Academy Award winner Christoph Waltz. Handsoming up things is Chris Pine, who steps into the role of Waltz’s spoiled son, Rex, a rotten man-child in a good suit who desperately wants to impress his careless dada.

Once Nick, Kurt, and Dale realize they’ve been tricked into an unforeseen ruin, they decide to reassemble as this makeshift comeuppance crew and get even with Waltz’s character by kidnapping Rex and holding him for ransom. Just so they don’t go bankrupt and s---.

Things don’t go as planned, though; this, in spite, of the trio having ironed out their plan with their crime consultant, Motherf---er Jones (an also-returning Jamie Foxx), and NicKurtDale – say it three times fast (this is one of the funnier, wrongest jokes in the movie) – soon are saddled with a Rex who wants in on their plan.

Which, of course, spells out doom for them. ’Cause he is hella unhinged.

Horrible Bosses 2 is more of the same, I’m afraid. And while it can be a hoot to watch, I did wish they’d left well enough alone. I mean, yeah, the movie is lots of Bateman serving up that deadpanned frustration he does so incredibly well. It's Sudeikis being a not-so-smart smart aleck, and Day being a frenzy ball of emotion.

And, once again, it’s a great showcase of Aniston’s underappreciated comedic knack; gf can get fan-f---in'-tastically nasty...and I likey.

But, ultimately, you can't help but feel that the money the powers that be spent on Horrible Bosses 2 could have been better spent in something more creative.

Would I welcome a Horrible Bosses 3? Sure, if it must come to that, and it just might. But I will expect a fresher take on things.

My Rating **1/2

Photo: Warner Bros.

Arrested a Fifth Time

Right on!

There will be a fifth season of Arrested Development.

So confirmed Ted Sarandos from Netflix this week, and Gob himself, Will Arnett (to Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show).

It never was a question of if, it seems, but of when. Season 4 did end on a bit of a cliffhanger, after all....

Now that that’s settled, the one thing that needs figuring out is the cast’s schedules, since everyone’s off doing different things: movies, in Jason Bateman’s case, and several different shows in Arnett’s and Tony Hale’s and Portia de Rossi’s, and Jeffrey Tambor’s, etc.

It’s a good problem to have. For them.

Us Me? We I want our my Arrested Development now!

Photo: AceShowbiz.com.

Family Reunion

This fall, the family that gets back together for a funeral will have fun together.

If you think that the adaptation of Jonathan Tropper’s This Is Where I Leave You is more of that good August: Osage County stuff, you are only kind of right.

For this one looks like a straight-out comedy, at least on paper, given its cast – a sprawling cast that includes, among others, Jason Bateman, Tina Fey (nice extensions, gurl!), Adam Driver (HBO’s Girls), the gorgeaussie Rose Byrne, Corey Stoll (whom you will see in FX’s The Strain this summer), Kathryn Hahn (Bad Words), Connie Britton (TV’s Nashville), Timothy Olyphant, Dax Shepard, and a quite-boobalicious Jane Fonda.

So there.

This Is Where I Leave You is due out on Sept. 12.

Photo: EW.com.

Bad Bee

You know how when you grow up you stop doing certain things?

In the upcoming Bad Words, Jason Bateman just…doesn’t.

Check out the red-band trailer for the oh-so-potty-mouthed comedy, in which the Arrested Development star plays a grown douche who keeps entering the National Spelling Bee on like, a technicality, and ends up finding his first friend in forever in a 10-year-old boy.

Look for Bad Words in March, yo.

Stage Mom

Next time Jason Bateman directs a feature, he’s gonna have an Oscar winner for a leading lady.

Nicole Kidman is set to star in the multi-hyphenate’s follow-up to Bad Words, The Family Fang (which also will co-star, well…him).

Rabbit Hole writer David Lindsay-Abaire – with whose work Kidman is quite familiar (to the tune of an Oscar nom) is behind the script, which centers on a pair of performance artists who used to make it a habit of getting their young children involved in events of the bizarre sort.

Later on, when their grown kids return home in a crisis, their folks, of course, sucker them into one final show.

Confrontations over ’em ordeals arise.

Photo: IrishMirror.ie.

Little Big Leading Man

Golden Globe winner Peter Dinklage is graduating.

Yes, the actor – terrific as a supporting player on HBO’s Game of Thrones and effective as all get out in ensemble films – is becoming a leading man.

Although one could argue he effectively did a decade ago by looking at his SAG-nominated turn in The Station Agent....

Anyway, yes, the X-Men: Days of Future Past baddie will get the spotlight all to himself in a major way when he stars in a Bad Santa-esque new raunch-com that will see him play a man who goes around telling people that he is a leprechaun. And probably to F off, too.

Dinklage is the first major piece of the puzzle on this project next to the writer that has been hired to pen the script (Andrew Dodge, who wrote Bad Words for Jason Bateman, will be doing the honors).

Photo: EW.com.

Family Vacation

Think American Sweetheart Jennifer Aniston has found the key to spicing things up: Jason Bateman Sudeikis.

L’Aniston did good for herself when she teamed up with the SNL star (and the Arrested Development straight man, actually) in Horrible Bosses, so it really isn’t so shocking that she’d rushed to recreate that magic.

And, OK, since she didn’t really have scenes with either Jason in that sleeper hit but with Charlie Day, I guess I should be clear and say we shouldn’t be shocked she was in a hurry to recreate the vein of that magic, which is why she signed on to star in We’re the Millers. With Sudeikis.

The actress plays the wife-and-MILF!mother-for-hire of a fake family put together for appearances by Sudeikis’ pot smuggler so he can transport 1,000 pounds of the drug across the Mexican border. Emma Roberts and Will Poulter play their fake kids.

The movie is opening on Aug. 9 – and here’s the NSFW red-band trailer, which features a heckuva lot of Aniston’s hot bod (dayum!):



As they say in español: Mamacita!

Bluths Almost Unleashed

The time is almost here, and the Bluths are almost back.

On May 26, Jason Bateman & Co. will be back on our screens – our computer screens – via the fourth season of the Emmy-winning Arrested Development.

So let’s give it up for Netflix, for making this happen.

Woo-friggin’-hoo! (I mean that.)

Check out the trailer for the upcoming 15 episodes, which will be available for streaming all at once.

Photo: CraveOnline.com.

Update: John Krasinski is the latest name to be added to the new season’s guest-star roster, btw.

He joins Liza Minnelli. And John Slattery. And countless others, so enjoy.

Thirteen more days!

Busy Rose Blooms

The adaptation of Jonathan Tropper’s This Is Where I Leave You keeps adding cool, talented people to its cast.

There’s Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, House of Cards’ Corey Stoll, Jane Fonda, Adam Driver (HBO’s Girls), and now, maybe, Rose Byrne.

The gorgeaussie (that’s gorgeous Aussie) is circling the part of an ex-gf of Bateman’s character in the story of four estranged siblings coming together in the wake of their father’s death.

On top of that, Byrne’s also eyeing the part of Seth Rogen’s wife in Townies, a raunchy new comedy that will pit the actor’s regular Joe character against and alpha male frat house leader played by Zac Efron.

Keep at it, girl.

Oh, and make them put you in X-Men: Days of Future Past. I will miss Moira MacTaggert otherwise.

Photo: CelebSlam.CeleBuzz.com.

No Toilet for Jess and Jase

Jason Bateman and Jessica Biel have gone on a toilet strike.

Eww!

And awww – ’cause it’s for a good cause.

The actors pledged their support for Matt Damon’s Water.org this week, which came with a promise not to use the bathroom to protest the lack access to safe water and sanitation that affects more than 2.5 billion people worldwide.

It’s a good thing Damon aligned himself with seemingly smart stars. Can you imagine if he had gone to others, like, say, the ones perceived to be dense (cough, cough, Paris, cough), and they thought they actually couldn’t go potty for this?

Hey – stranger things have been known to happen among Hollywood folk.

Photo: UsMagazine.com.

Driver’s Seat to Stardom

I think it’s safe to say Adam Driver isn’t an up-and-comer anymore.

As one of the guys on HBO’s Girls, the actor’s done quite a good job standing out opposite Lena Dunham & Co. Plus, he’s had bit parts in awards bait fare like J. Edgar and Lincoln.

And now he is being courted for a role in Jason Bateman’s next star-studded ensemble piece, the adaptation of Jonathan Tropper’s This Is Where I Leave You. The story centers on four dysfunctional grown siblings tasked with spending the seven days following their late father’s funeral under the same roof for the first time in a decade

Tina Fey and Corey Stoll (from Netflix’s beyond-addictive House of Cards) are already on board to play Bateman’s sister and brother. Driver would play their rebellious kid bro.

Jane Fonda is set to portray their mother.

Photo: Vogue.com.

The Comeuppance Crew Reassembled

Those cinematic employees who bite back will bite back again.

Horrible Bosses stars Jason Sudeikis, Charlie Day, and Jason Bateman have signed on to endure some more torture and choice humiliations from their superiors in a follow-up to their hit 2011 black comedy.

Jamie Foxx is thisclose to saying yes to reprising his role as crime consultant Motherf---er Jones, too.

No word yet on whether Jennifer Aniston or Kevin Spacey will be back for more because the script – from original writers John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein – is said to feature a new set of horrible bosses.

Seth Gordon will be back in the director’s chair, so you can expect this sequel to be, at the very least, as strong as the original was. All the same muscles are involved.

Photo: E! Online.

America’s New Sweetheart’s Big Plan

Oscar nominee Melissa McCarthy is large and in charge and here to stay.

Thank goodness.

The Bridesmaids scene-stealer and Emmy-winning star of TV’s Mike & Molly announced last week that she has not one, not two, but three new projects in the works under the production shingle she has launched with her actor-husband Ben Falcone, a.k.a. the man she hilariously accosted during the plane scene in Bridesmaids.

The couple is writing the secretive Michelle Darnell, in which they’ll co-star. And working on Cousin Irv from Mars, which is based on an upcoming book. And on the longly titled Just Do It: How One Couple Turned Off the TV and Turned On Their Sex Lives for 101 Days (No Excuses!), which is based on a memoir by some dude named Douglas Brown.

Busy girl. I likey.

Oh, and on top of everything, she is looking to co-direct her long-gestating raunchy comedy Tammy herself. The Help director Tate Taylor and TV helmer Beth McCarthy reportedly were previously eyed for the gig.

McCarthy is currently in theaters in the comedy Identity Thief opposite Jason Bateman.

Photo: Celebspin.com.

Indeed, the Time Is Right Now

I know, I know – having celebs tell us what to do is as much fun as getting elephant poop slung our way, but this time, the rich and famous have a point: It has been enough.

Last week’s shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut was a new low in America’s struggle to get its s--- together and come up with a plan for better gun control.

I call it a struggle because, obviously, some people understand that, while guns may not kill people (people kill people), it doesn’t mean guns should be readily available because it’s a right to bear them. We gotta ensure the right people get access to guns.

The latest shooter was a 20-year-old with a reported history of mental problems (which is its own issue, one that needs to be addressed ASAP). That kid needed to be around guns as much as those children and adults he shot needed to have their lives cut short. Not at all!

The Sandy Hook incident was an all-around tragedy and a travesty, and it is enough.

I hope all Americans, even the pro-guns-everwhere folks, realized that in the wake of this sad chapter, and are finally ready to take a look at what needs to be done.

If bearing arms must be a right, then it had better be a regulated one.

That’s all Beyoncé, Jon Hamm, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jason Bateman, Peter Dinklage, Julianne Moore, Amy Poehler, Selena Gomez, Jennifer Aniston, and Chris Rock, among countless others, are demanding.

So demand a plan, too. It is time for that gross NRA mentality to stop its pervasive influence.

Spellbound

Leave it thinking-man hottie Jason Bateman to make his feature-film directorial debut with material that calls for some smarts.

The Arrested Development star will pop his behind-the-camera cherry with Bad Words, a comedy about a 41-year-old high school dropout who, because of a loophole, is allowed into the National Quill Spelling Bee.

The Help’s Allison Janney will play the contest’s outraged director.

Kathryn Han (Our Idiot Brother) and Ben Falcone (Bridesmaids) are set to co-star.

Photo: Details.com.