All the way back in July of 2006, Cinematical first mentioned the romantic comedy How I Met My Boyfriend's Dead Fiancee, which has since become the briefer, easier-to-say Over Her Dead Body. Starring Eva Longoria, the flick is about a female psychic (Lake Bell) who falls for a skeptic (Paul Rudd), and then has to deal with his dead ex-fiance (Longoria) -- a pissy ghost who doesn't want them getting together. (Yes, this is very similar to Ghost Town, which I told you about the other day.) The romcom was written by John Tucker Must Die scribe Jeff Lowell, and is the writer's directorial debut.

Now Variety reports that the comedy has been picked up by New Line, and we'll get to see it on February 1st. I'm pretty psyched -- while Rudd gets a lot of roles these days, they're almost always in that darned supporting realm. He pops on, throws out some highly-quotable lines, whips up some memorable moments, and then backs away while the stars take over. Hopefully this will be a notable lead for him, or the gateway to more leading work. Isn't it about time? He's come a long way since Overnight Delivery, so it's time he gets some love!

But that's not all New Line has picked up. The company has also nabbed Kevin Costner and Ivana Banquero's The New Daughter. However, that hasn't even begun production yet, so we won't be seeing it for a while.

Replace Rwandan refugees with dogs and what do you get? Don Cheadle's next film. The actor, who earned an Oscar nomination for Hotel Rwanda, has been cast in the similarly titled yet very differently themed movie Hotel for Dogs. It isn't just the title of the new project that reminds us of the earlier film; the synopsis provided by Variety tells us that Hotel for Dogs features a hotel that serves as a refuge and sanctuary for beings that would otherwise be dispose of. Of course, this time they are in fact dogs and not human victims of a civil war in Africa. Last month, when Monika brought you the story of Hotel for Dogs, it was said that Emma Roberts (I'll continue reminding you that she's Julia's niece) would star as one of two orphaned teens who hide stray dogs in an abandoned hotel. We had also learned that it was based on a 1971 children's book by Lois Duncan and that it would be effects artist Thor Freudenthal's directorial debut. The adaptation has been scripted by Jeff Lowell (John Tucker Must Die) and is being produced by Jon Gordon, Lauren Shuler Donner (Unaccompanied Minors) and Jack Leslie.

Cheadle apparently will not be a hotel manager this time. Instead, he will play a social worker who keeps the teens out of trouble. I can't find a plot description of the book, but I have a feeling that his role will not be too huge. Seeing as how he mostly appears in R-rated films (including his other 'Dog' title, The Dog Problem), Cheadle is probably just doing this for his preteen daughters. Despite coming from a book by Duncan, who also wrote the source of I Know What You Did Last Summer, this movie will likely be more family friendly. Hotel for Dogs begins shooting in early November, which is probably just after Cheadle finishes the espionage thriller Traitor and should fill some time while he continues to wait on start date announcements for the biopics about Toussaint L'Ouverture and Miles Davis.

If his upcoming projects do well, Thor Freudenthal might just become the it-guy for family film. In January, he was picked up by 20th Century Fox to direct his first feature -- They Came From Upstairs -- from successful family film screenwriter Mark Burton. Now the Stuart Little CG artist-turned director (who was also the second unit director for Disney's The Haunted Mansion) is getting another feature to add to his schedule -- DreamWorks' Hotel for Dogs. The film is based on the Lois Duncan children's book about two orphaned teens who hide stray dogs in an abandoned hotel, and has been adapted by John Tucker Must Die writer Jeff Lowell. I imagine production will be pretty interesting, beyond all the dogs they'll need on-set, one of the producers, Lauren Shuler Donner is apparently such a dog lover that she has over a dozen dogs all for herself. And I thought I loved animals.

I'm sure this will be the usual type of feel-good family fare, but I can't help but with that one of Duncan's other books would get picked up -- for a good movie treatment. By the time Christopher Pike and R.L. Stine had popped up on the young adult circuit, she'd already been writing children's and adolescent books for over 20 years. If you never read her books, you might recognize her name from the slew of crappy television adaptations/direct-to-video fare starring everyone from Soliel Moon Frye and Michelle Williams to Patrick Duffy and Dennis Hopper. And, of course, you can't forget the one feature film that made it big: I Know What You Did Last Summer.

First-time director Jeff Lowell has assembled a cast of pretty big names for his debut (which he also wrote) -- and with a name as clever as How I Met My Boyfriend's Dead Fiancée, who could possibly resist? (This must be the first in a long line of movies going the Snakes on a Plane-obvious route.) Eva Longoria, who has movie roles coming out of her pretty little (but possibly not that talented) ears, will play the titular character, with Paul Rudd as the grieving almost-widower.

The film will tell the story of a "female psychic who falls in love with a skeptic while the ghost of his dead fiancée ... tries to keep them apart." The psychic will be played by TV's Lake Bell (Can't you just hear the pitch? "It's like Ghost, except really, really funny. And this time, the psychic is hot!"), who took her boobs last season from Boston Legal to Surface, a career move that seems to have won her the right to bring them to the big screen. Good work, Lake!