In February, Kevin James signed on to play The Zookeeper in MGM's upcoming live action comedy. At the time, the plot was described as the story of a zookeeper who decides to leave the zoo because he's having trouble meeting a girl ... but the animals intervene. Now we know what that intervention is. The guy wants to win back the woman of his dreams, so the animals teach him their methods of dating and mating. I hate to say it, but this sounds cute.

The instructors of ze love, according to Variety, will be Adam Sandler as a capuchin monkey, Cher as a giraffe, Jon Favreau as a bear, Sylvester Stallone as a lion, and Judd Apatow as an elephant. I think they missed an opportunity by not making Sly a stallion, but otherwise, those voices could make for an interesting set of mating rituals.

Jim Breuer, Faizon Love, and Bas Rutten are rounding out the voice cast, but there's also one other name on the roster -- Rosario Dawson. Yes, she will play the woman of his dreams. Oh, men must love the fantasies that Hollywood provides.

The idea of anthropomorphized animals teaching a lonely sap mating rituals could make for a lot of comedy -- if they're allowed to really dip into the mating rituals. Do you think this James laffer will live up to the promise, or pale in comparison to projects like Green Porno?

Percy Jackson: The Lightening Thief is the first in a series of young adult novels by Rick Riordan about a kid with dyslexia and ADHD who's also the kid of, you know, the son of Poseidon. As with most of us, he learns all about himself at summer camp -- except instead of mosquito bites and panty raids, Percy finds his camp is full of the sons and daughters of demigods. Since being optioned by Fox 2000 in 2004, it's acquired quite a roster of theatrical demigods to the cast, and its latest additions are pretty swell.

Rosario Dawson (who was the only part of Seven Pounds that didn't make me want to throw a shoe at the screen) is playing a sexy Persephone who gets a little friendly with Percy's BFF Grover, who, as it turns out, is a satyr. Awkward!

Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster for Explicit Ills, a film which has taken home at least two Audience Awards (SXSW, Gen Art Chicago) during its festival run in 2008. And when a film snags more than one Audience Award, that means audiences kinda dig it, like, a lot. Featuring the directorial debut of actor-turned-filmmaker Mark Webber, Explicit Ills stars Rosario Dawson, Paul Dano, Naomie Harris and Lou Taylor Pucci, among others.

From Scott's positive SXSW review: "Brief, honest, and admirably to-the-point, Explicit Ills follows a group of seemingly unrelated South Philadelphia folks who try to lead normal, happy, anonymous lives -- but their station on the lower rung of the income scale means that even the most basic requirements remain frustratingly out-of-reach." It's a pretty impressive debut for Webber as writer-director, and a film that will unfortunately hit home for a lot of folks during these tough economic times. But there's a strong message and a point, and you'll wanna set aside some time to watch Explicit Ills when it hits theaters on March 6th (In NYC), March 13th (in LA) and March 20th (in Philly).

Click the image below to view the full poster.

Seemingly needless to say, spoilers for the Shia LaBeouf techno-thriller Eagle Eye will soon follow.

Seriously, I don't want to hear any complaints. I done warned ya.

Alright then. So, as much as the film tested my suspension of disbelief in theaters -- which it did, in no small frequency -- I pretty much went with it and enjoyed it, though nothing says studio ex machina like the rah-rah happy ending in which Shia takes several bullets while thwarting an evil computer's elaborate assassination attempt on the President of the United States and his entire Cabinet, but magically manages to make it to Michelle Monaghan's son's birthday party after all, Guitar Hero make that Rock Band in hand (hey, now that bit rhymes!).

Well, according to the video after the jump, bootlegged borrowed from the recent DVD release, another ending was actually considered... and then written... and then filmed where the kids are playing the game before it freezes up and indicates that (duh-duh-DUH!) said evil computer is back online and coming after him, them, and maybe even YOU!

So ... which ending is sillier?

There are plenty of movie stars (including one currently headed to theaters donning an eye-patch) whose acting skills amount to riffing on a one-dimensional celebrity persona. And then there are those valuable few like Will Smith, who actively seek out roles -- often in so-so mega-blockbusters -- that challenge their range and demand more than simply endearing smirks and cutesy quips. For Smith, this has resulted in a career at once box-office lucrative and critically respected, with his performances in work as varied as 2007's post-apocalyptic sci-fi actioner I Am Legend and 2006's true-life melodrama The Pursuit of Happyness exhibiting equal amounts of intensity and nuance. Smith can do macho bluster and ladies' man charm in his sleep, yet what elevates him above most of his marquee brethren has always been an ability to lace such outsized qualities with a strain of vulnerable fallibility. He's a figure at once larger-than-life and still relatable, a hero capable of revealing, in ways more subtle than the chaos that frequently surrounds him, mortal tenderness and uncertainty.

Having, with The Pursuit of Happyness, already proven himself capable of bringing raw sensitivity to mawkish material, there was modest reason to hope that Smith might again pull off the same feat in his second collaboration with that film's director, Gabriele Muccino. No such luck. Seven Pounds is misguided mush from the moment go, a deliberately muddled bit of inspirational pap that masks its inherent silliness with structural obliqueness and, worse still, affords Smith scant opportunities to infuse his character with authentic humanity.

I cringe a little whenever Sin City 2 hits my RSS feed, because the news is generally vague and rarely good. Last week, I noted in passing that Mickey Rourke and Frank Miller were ready for the sequel, and that it could shoot as early as next April. Rosario Dawson also confirmed all of the above to ISEB.net, and added that she was on board too.

Well, it seems Rourke wasn't ready -- in fact, he may not return at all. ComingSoon caught up with him at a junket for The Wrestler, and Rourke abruptly denied all of the above. "No, I'm not interested in that right now. That's not a reality right now. It's pissing in the wind. There's different factions going different directions there. I don't know. That's three hours of make up and I'm claustrophobic, so I'm going to have to work something out."

This is probably just Rourke being Rourke -- tomorrow he could be on board again, and tomorrow all Sin City 2 talk could vanish anyway. However, if he means it (and the make-up is something he brought up with MTV as well), that's not to say that Sin City 2 would be impossible to do without Marv. Any sequel was supposed to revolve around A Dame to Kill For anyway, where pre-Hard Goodbye Marv disappears about halfway in, so it is possible to comfortably write him out. Still, it would have been kind of fun to see a "midquel" onscreen, wouldn't it?

While the Internet was frantically reporting that Megan Fox was at the head of the line to play the Amazon superheroine, Beyonce was quietly meeting with representatives from Warner Bros and DC trying to nab the role for herself.

Hero Complex sat down with the megastar, who gushed about the recent superhero trend, noting that "they're not corny at all," and how badly she would like to be a part of them. "I want to do a superhero movie and what would be better than Wonder Woman? It would be great. And it would be a very bold choice. A black Wonder Woman would be a powerful thing. It's time for that, right?"

Her one misgiving is the costume which, despite her fantastic figure, she admits is incredibly unforgiving. "I would definitely have to keep it right for that costume. The way that Lynda Carter wore it, she was so fine. She was amazing. I saw her costume at the Met. Her waist was unbelievable. It was pretty crazy, actually, her proportions. But I love Wonder Woman and it'd be a dream come true to be that character. It sure would be handy to have that lasso. To make everybody tell the truth? I need that. It would come in very handy."

The first time I came across a trailer for the Diane Lane/Thomas Jane/Mickey Rourke hitman thriller Killshot (only remaining on an AICN archive page and the errant DVD release), it was back in September of 2006. Since then, the Elmore Leonard adaptation has endured reshoots in January of 2007 and countless changes in release dates after that. Of course, there's also at least three test screening reviews that bring to light the entire removal of a character played by Johnny Knoxville from the film.

Now, not long after the Weinstein Company issued its latest round of supposed scheduling, Killshot's most recent date -- November 7, 2008 -- has been dashed away by this Los Angeles Times piece, and as pointed out, how does one struggle to release anything that John Madden, Anthony Minghella, Sydney Pollack and Quentin Tarantino all had hands in at some point? How does one struggle to even sell off domestic distribution rights to a film with this cast and that crew? The obvious answer is, of course, that the film is a downright dud, though the general pedigree and harshest reviews seem to suggest that it's not a total turkey.

The best-case scenario at this point is that the film rides the awards buzz of Rourke's performance in December's The Wrestler as suggested and gets a theatrical release in the early winter dumping grounds (through the Weinsteins' Third Rail arm, I'd bet), while the worst-case scenario is the film being directly downgraded to the level of a Blockbuster-exclusive curio. We shall see...

The first trailer for Will Smith's new flick has just arrived online, and it's called Seven Pounds ... and it was directed by Gabriele Muccino (The Pursuit of Happyness) ... and it definitely looks like one of them tear-jerkers. (For those obsessive, need-it-right-now folks, you can watch the trailer after the jump.) In the film, Smith plays a guy who's feeling guilty about mistakes he's made over the years, and so he decides to help change the lives of seven total strangers. In doing so, he winds up falling in love with one of the aforementioned strangers, played by Rosario Dawson. So here we have a movie about giving to others, it comes out December 19 (right in time for Christmas), and it stars our most precious A-list actor. Mmmm ... makes you just wanna wash it all down with a slice of apple pie.

Seven Pounds marks Big Willie's second trip to the multiplex this year, after first starring in the summer superhero action/adventure Hancock. A quick glance at his previous two films spots a similar pattern of action blockbuster and quiet drama -- and even though Smith will always guarantee you great numbers on opening weekend no matter the genre, one wonders which version of the man you all prefer? For ten bucks, would you rather spend it watching Will Smith kick ass on a $200 million budget, or would you prefer to spend the time with his gentler, Oscar-nominated side? Or, would you rather watch the man star in more straight-up comedies, a la Hitch?

How do you like your Will Smith?

Related: Fan Rant: Will Smith Needs to Play a Villain

When two people walk away from a high-speed car crash with nary a scratch on them, you know you're watching an action movie. When an innocent, ordinary citizen is suddenly thrust into the middle of a national security crisis, you know you're watching a paranoid conspiracy thriller. When both these conditions have been met, nothing makes much sense, and things go "boom!" every 8-10 minutes, you know you're watching Eagle Eye.

Re-teaming star Shia LaBeouf and director D.J. Caruso from last year's immensely popular, faux-Hitchcockian Disturbia, Eagle Eye, which had a special screening at Fantastic Fest with Caruso in attendance, might welcome comparisons to The Man Who Knew Too Much or The Wrong Man but is actually closer in spirit to The Net, Irwin Winkler's 1995 attempt to wrestle with identity theft and other perils of the information age. Like that movie, Eagle Eye exploits the all too common fear of technology, but shoves the premise way past common sense, positing a world in which an anonymous voice on a cell phone holds the power of life and death over complete strangers.

With this role, LaBeouf ascends definitively into the Hollywood firmament of stars. While this may be good news for his legion of young fans and his accountant, it's bad news for the moral possibilities of the character he plays. Looking like Seth Rogen's younger brother with a scruffy beard and threadbare clothes, Jerry Shaw is a prodigal son living on the cheap in Chicago. He's devastated when he learns that his twin brother has been killed in an accident, but reconciliation with his stern father (William Sadler) is impossible.