My favorite film from the Tribeca Film Festival this year was Zak Penn's The Grand, mainly because I love spontaneous comedy and this film was filled with it. When I sat down with Penn during the festival, his film hadn't been picked up yet, but Variety tells us today that none other than Anchor Bay Entertainment has acquired all North American rights to the flick with plans to distribute via a platform release (which means it will arrive in a limited amount of cities before expanding depending on how well it does) early next year. It's a bit of a surprise move for Anchor Bay seeing as they're more known for getting behind horror flicks (like recent festival favorites Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon and Hatchet) than comedy, but obviously they're looking to expand their repertoire.

Penn is slowly lining up an interesting career for himself. On one hand, he's the go-to guy for comic book adaptations, having penned X-Men 3: The Last Stand, Elektra and next summer's The Incredible Hulk. But then he involves himself with these little passion projects as a director, like the little-seen mockumentary Incident at Loch Ness and The Grand. Starring a lot of people (Ray Romano, David Cross, Werner Herzog, Woody Harrelson and Cheryl Hines, to name a few), pic is a mockumentary which follows a group of people looking to score big at a poker tournament in Las Vegas. If you're a fan of shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm or anything that Christopher Guest puts out, then this flick should be right up your alley. For more, feel free to check out my review of The Grand from Tribeca.

Who would have thought Zak Penn, he of countless superhero movie scripts (in addition to such highlights as PCU and Inspector Gadget), would have anything in common with slightly unhinged (in the best possible way) German genius, Werner Herzog? It turns out that the two get along like gangbusters, as evidenced by Herzog's starring roles in both Incident at Loch Ness (Penn's directorial debut) and The Grand, the improvised poker flick that Penn is currently putting together.

Herzog is joined in the cast by a host of poker-loving actors, including Ray Liotta, Woody Harrelson, Cheryl Hines, Ray Romano and Jason Alexander who, if his appearances on Celebrity Poker Showdown are anything to go by, will prove himself both annoying and painfully unfunny. Penn's plan is to direct from a screenplay outline, but to allow the actors to improvise most of their dialogue as they play real poker on their way to the championship round of a pretend international tournament; he starts shooting next month.