UPDATE: THR has just confirmed that Johnny Depp will indeed play the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, which is currently in pre-production. Disney announced the news earlier today. Depp was rumored to be playing the role for a couple months now, and it definitely suits the actor. The film itself will combine live action and motion-capture animation, and it will be released in digital 3-D. Newcomer Mia Wasikowska has been cast as Alice. Additionally, it's now bring reported that Depp will also take on a role in The Lone Ranger (IESB says he'll be playing Tonto).

Good ol' Ben Affleck must have gone stir crazy. We haven't seen him on the big screen since 2006, and now he's got a bunch of projects on the way. Last week there was The Town, and now The Hollywood Reporter posts that he's in talks to star in The Company Men, with John Wells directing. This is not to be confused with the Ron Livingston-starring The Company Men, which is also in the works. Both are a bit similar in plot -- Livingston gets to try and save a sinking company in a crappy economy while Affleck will get laid off and struggle with the fallout. Hopefully one of them will change their name soon.

Anne Hathaway has landed another gig, this time as a "young, commitment-phobic attorney" in The Opposite of Love, so says The Hollywood Reporter. Essentially, this gal's life falls apart when she rejects her current boyfriend who was ready for marriage, like, yesterday. What's the opposite of interesting?

Bruce Willis is picking up a helming hat. Variety reports that he will make his directorial debut with an indie psychological thriller called Three Stories About Joan. Starring Camilla Belle, Kieran Culkin, and Willis in a supporting role, the film focuses on three tragedies in a young woman's life "that cause her to lose her grip on reality." Hmmm ... Demi directs and now Willis? Could one be trying to top the other? Thoughts?

Not long ago the strangest unmarked DVD arrived in my mailbox. Actually, strike that, on it were the words, "What Happened to Bruce Willis?" So I popped it in, and -- whaddya know -- it was a very funny scene from the film What Just Happened? featuring Robert De Niro trying to convince Bruce Willis to shave his obnoxious beard for a movie. Since it first premiered back at this year's Sundance Film Festival (read James' review), I've been waiting to see more from What Just Happened? as it featured a reunion between director Barry Levinson and De Niro, who worked together on the very awesome political satire Wag the Dog.

Now, thankfully, the first full-length trailer for the flick has arrived online (see above or over on Moviefone), and while it definitely appears to have the whole "inside baseball" thing going on, it certainly looks entertaining. Heck, with a cast featuring the likes of De Niro, Sean Penn, Bruce Willis, Catherine Keener, John Turturro and Robin Wright Penn, I'd like to think we'll be getting our money's worth from this one. Based on the memoir by producer Art Linson, What Just Happened? follows a Hollywood producer (De Niro) who's struggling to maintain his sanity while juggling his deteriorating personal life and a new movie he's trying to get made. Here's the poster, up there is the trailer -- now tell us what you think ...

What Just Happened? is due in theaters on October 3.

Cinematical just received this exclusive poster for What Just Happened? (click to enlarge), which comes to us from director Barry Levinson (Rain Man, Wag the Dog). Based on producer Art Linson's memoir What Just Happened? Bitter Hollywood Tales from the Front Line, the film stars Robert De Niro as a middle-aged Hollywood producer who tries to juggle an actual life with an outrageous series of crises in his day job.

As you can see from the poster, however, this puppy is packed with talent. You've got De Niro, Sean Penn, Bruce Willis, John Turturro, Stanley Tucci, Catherine Keener and the list goes on. When What Just Happened? premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, Cinematical's James Rocchi described it as "movie geek heaven," saying De Niro produces "his best 'sly' comedic work since (probably) Wag the Dog." And how can you not love that poster and its tagline? Hilarious. Really looking forward to seeing this one when it arrives in a few months. (Check out the full synopsis after the jump)

What Just Happened? is set to hit theaters on October 3.

A no-profile videogame adapatation may have just leapt into the A-list. Lionsgate has been developing Kane & Lynch, an adaptation of a reasonably popular but not particularly beloved videogame called Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, since last February; at one point last year, Jieho Lee, writer-director of the profoundly terrible The Air I Breathe was in talks to direct. Evidently that didn't work out, since the movie will now be directed by veteran stunt coordinator and second unit director Simon Crane.

Crane is currently the stunt director on The Surrogates, a sci-fi thriller directed by Jonathan Mostow and starring Bruce Willis. Which is a lovely segue into the bigger news: according to The Hollywood Reporter, Bruce Willis is in talks to play the first of the title characters. In the video game, Kane is a criminal sprung from death row to hunt and retrieve a stolen fortune under pain of death for his kidnapped wife and child. He's accompanied on his mission by fellow inmate and psychopathic killer Lynch (yet to be cast), who keeps an eye on Kane and reports to the people holding his family hostage.

Since there does not seem to be a huge fan base to capitalize on here (unlike with, say, Hitman), one hopes that Lionsgate has something interesting in mind with this adaptation. Sadly, I suspect that "generic Bruce Willis actioner" is itself a promising enough business proposition that something above-and-beyond is unlikely.

According to Coming Soon, Radha Mitchell has joined the cast of Jonathan Mostow's sci-fi thriller, The Surrogates. The movie is based on the graphic novel from Robert Venditti and was adapted by the screenwriting duo of Michael Ferris and John D. Brancato. The bad news is that these guys have written some pretty crappy movies in the past. Hopefully, these two are better at adaptations than they are at original ideas.

In The Surrogates, Bruce Willis stars as a cop in a futuristic world where all human interaction is performed by look-alike robots called Surrogates. Not only do the robots do all the talking for us, but they're even better looking too (when it comes to Mitchell, though, the original is none too shabby ... so I can't imagine what they would do to make her even better looking). When someone begins murdering 'surrogates' right and left, Willis is forced to venture into the outside world for the first time to track down the killer.

If you're a ravenous movie nerd like me, than there's very little in Barry Levinson's "inside baseball" Hollywood movie What Just Happened? If, on the other hand, you don't know a whole lot about studio politics, the angst of test-market screenings, and the tricks that movie-makers (or, more specifically, movie-sellers) will pull just to get a festival screening and a huge opening weekend, then you'll most likely get a whole bunch of chuckles out of the flick. To those who know about this stuff all too well, the comedy should still make for an interesting enough diversion -- thanks mainly to a massive, colorful cast and a few solid jabs that hit Hollywood right in the kisser.

Based on producer Art Linson's book What Just Happened? Bitter Hollywood Tales from the Front Line, the film version tells the story of one very successful Hollywood producer, and the ways in which he juggles multiple professional crises, as well as some prickly domestic issues at the same time. Robert De Niro is our movie producer, doing his best "sly" comedic work since (probably) Wag the Dog. John Turturro is the archetypal agent: skittish, shifty, and packing a nasty ulcer. Stanley Tucci is the writer who needs our protagonist for professional reasons, but pursues his ex-wife (Robin Wright Penn) for other activities. Michael Wincott is the drug-infested director whose ultra-edgy film is being mangled by horrifying studio boss Catherine Keener.

Toss in some supremely amusing "self-mocking" performances from movie stars Bruce Willis and Sean Penn, and you've got the makings of a flick best described as "movie geek heaven." And while What Just Happened? is by all means a colorful and generally pretty funny expose of modern-day Hollywood, it often feels like Levinson and Linson (he also penned the screenplay adaptation) are content to preach to the choir. It's meant to be outrageous and unbelievable how art turns into pure commerce, but there have been plenty of Hollywood satires that demolish the "test screening" mentality, the "beleaguered producer" conceit, and the oh-so-cynical insinuation that Hollywood has no integrity whatsoever. So while much of the material in What Just Happened? is insightful and accurate ... it's just not all that new or shocking anymore.

I just love those lists that are supposed to represent the fandom of the general public. This is probably because my preferences rarely converge with them. Sure, some of my tastes are a little off the beaten path -- I'd pick Danny Huston over Brad Pitt, or Julie Delpy over Julia Roberts. That being said, I still love me some good mainstream. Yet I still find myself raising my brows when I read these lists, just as I did today when I saw the annual Harris Poll for America's favorite movie stars, which Hollywood.com put up today. The order is surprising, as is the one lone oldie to the group.

Their results, counting down from 10 to 1:

10. Bruce Willis
9. Sandra Bullock
7. (tie) Matt Damon & Sean Connery
6. John Wayne
5. Will Smith
4. Julia Roberts
3. Johnny Depp
2. Tom Hanks
1. Denzel Washington

Yes, that's John Wayne there at number 6. Apparently he is the only actor to nab a spot on the poll every year since its inception in '94. Also, Depp is quickly working his way up the ranks, having moved up four positions from last year. Personally, I find the list surprising, and a bit sad in the realm of women in cinema. What say you?

What's the definition of a "Christmas movie?" Is it a simple matter of setting in time, a more complex question of tone, an ineffable connection to the Christmas spirit? I can't answer that, but I can tell you one thing.

Die Hard is a Christmas movie.

It's bloody, brutal and base; it's punchy, puckish and profane ... and it's unequivocally a Christmas movie, or it wouldn't be in the rotation at my house -- and, I suspect, some of yours -- every December as reliably as it is, nor would that annual process of returning to my mind seem as welcome as it is. Normally, in a piece about a film, here's where I'd recap the plot, but seriously, do you need one here? Have you been in cryogenic suspension? Are you leaving the Amish faith after 20 years and figured you'd turn to the internets to catch up? It's Die Hard. You know the plot. And if you need a refresher, go watch it. Right now. We'll be here when you get back.

Moonlighting had all sorts of Cybil Shepherd and Bruce Willis goodness, with a sweet side Agnes DiPesto and a certain Boogery Curtis Armstrong. In 1986, it got even better when they went Shakespearian in the episode Atomic Shakespeare -- one of my favorite media moments of the '80s. Some unknown student wanted to watch Moonlighting, but his mom told him he had to read Taming of the Shrew for school. As he reads the play, the characters from the hit show slip into all of the bard's famous characters.

Bruce Willis is Petruchio, a man looking to gain a wife with lots of cash, and the shrew, otherwise known as Katherine (Shepherd), becomes the object of his monetary affection. In this scene, he meets Kate for the first time, and battles with her to try and win her hand in marriage. He crashes into the room a la The Shining (Here's Petruchio!) and the two banter in all sorts of sexy punningness ("pianist envy").

Poll Answer from last time: Nicole Kidman was the actress who bet George Clooney.

New poll: