It's just like an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The most popular girl in school (Cordelia) is "unexpectedly rejected" by the nerdiest guy (Xander). "Her social status drops, his rises, and the rules of popularity shift for the entire school." Okay, Xander wasn't lucky enough to have that happen, but he did have a moment where every woman in town wanted him. Anyhow, this is the premise for an upcoming comedy called Big Man on Campus, and The Hollywood Reporter posts that Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont (Can't Hardly Wait and Made of Honor) are penning a rewrite.

Cinematical first posted about the film in January of 2007, when first-time director Hal Lieberman had signed on to helm the script by Gina Wendkos (My Two Dads, Jersey Girl, Coyote Ugly, and The Princess Diaries). Since then, things have been silent, and I'm not sure what took the project this long to get a rewrite. I imagine the writing pair have been brought in to sass the script up, especially if they tap back into their Hardly roots. I just hope that whatever it becomes, it's one of those high school flicks that doesn't rely on ridiculous stereotypes, or calls hot guys or girls nerds because they wear glasses or, say, overalls.

There's a few new and mysterious writing deals making the rounds:

First, Variety reports that Spyglass Entertainment has picked up a romantic comedy pitch called Leap Year -- but absolutely nothing is being said about it. So, you can imagine the obvious -- there's something due to our four-year blip, and all sorts of laughter and love. It is, however, a pitch from Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont, the writing team who most recently whipped together Made of Honor, but is also known for A Very Brady Sequel, The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, Josie and the Pussycats, Surviving Christmas, and my personal guilty favorite -- Can't Hardly Wait. It's nice to see them ripping out of their TV show remake rut -- this is just one of a number of upcoming features.

Meanwhile, The Hollywood Reporter posts that Endgame has picked up a spec by Robert Tannen called The Hungry Rabbit Jumps. The writer has one lone credit to his name -- 2006's Even Money, a crime drama that starred actors from Kim Basinger to Forest Whitaker. This spec, however, is being kept under wraps too, but we do know this -- Tobey Maguire is producing it (to possibly star in?), and the film is described as a "dark, character-driven thriller." Whether he jumps in front of the camera or not, this is still another project for Maguire's post-Spider-Man career. He's got a bunch of upcoming films on the way, plus Afterburn, which Elisabeth mentioned last month.

We all know about the plights of Gotham residents -- big city, big rents, lots of people. The residents trudge along, trying to find sex, love, work, art and life against a backdrop of concrete and skyscrapers. Even with the small zoo in Central Park, it's not really the city of animals -- unless under the animated hand of Madagascar. But now the Big Apple is going to nature and the birds. Not Hitchcock's rabid birds, but...red-tail hawks along with some romantic comedy.

Although it has completely slipped by my radar, there's a book from Wall Street Journal ornithology writer Marie Winn called Red-Tails in Love. The tome is about humans and birds in Central Park over a period of five years, and includes Mary Tyler Moore and Woody Allen, as well as passages like: "heart-stoppingly beautiful song: Ee-oh-lee, ee-oh-loo-ee-lee, ee-lay-loo." Yup, now I understand why it has stayed off my radar -- I'm not a big fan of bird sounds written out. The project had been gestating over at Columbia with Nora Ephron for a while, but now Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont have got it. This will be the writing teams first directorial stint in ages. Their previous projects are the graduation comedy Can't Hardly Wait, and Josie and the Pussycats -- so it looks like they're eyeing older material these days. While they're also scribes (Made of Honor), they're not picking up the pen for this one. The adaptation will be written by Peter Speakman and Michael Galvin -- whose lone feature is Freak Talks About Sex, so this looks like a bit of a change for them as well. I don't know. So far, so not appealing. Has anyone read the book and can tell me otherwise?