Back when I posted about television shows hitting the big screen in February, I included a joke Matthew Perry made about how the cast of Friends were "trying to organize a thing soon," but he meant a dinner, not a movie.

Did he, in fact, mean a movie? We can take this with a grain of salt right now, but The Daily Mail says that a film based on the popular series has gotten the green light to start filming in the next year and a half, with all of the actors interested in reprising their roles -- Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow, and David Schwimmer.

Basically, it's all said to be due to the success of Sex and the City, and their source says: "she [Aniston] and Courteney have already talked this summer about what they want out of a Friends movie, and if deals can be made with them, everything else can fall into place rather quickly." The rest of the piece has a bunch of particulars about money, and how the show is at the top of the TV-to-screen list.

Whether it's true or not, it makes sense. But do you want to see the friends reunite?

After news that High School Musical 3 was going to be the "last" in the series, fangirls had to start dealing with the thought of no more dancing Zac Efron. Although really -- "last" never means what it's supposed to these days, so that could just mean a year or two hiatus. But, whether this is it or not, MTV reports that he will dance again -- and really soon.

No, he hasn't signed on for a new musical. Rather, Adam Shankman says that the young heartthrob will be singing and dancing in Seventeen Again. You remember, right? It's the comedy where a kid who had it all gives up his sporting aspirations to be with his high school girlfriend -- but then he gets to Matthew Perry age, and he's separated and in a dead-end job. When he thinks about how great things were at 17, he gets catapulted back to youth in Efron form, and is forced to become a kid again -- while going to school with his own kids.

Shankman raves about Efron's work as a comedian: "people are going to be so surprised how seriously great he is in this movie," and also says: "there's also this big thing with Zac dancing with a lot of cheerleaders that is very, very fun and funny." Why so funny? This is what Efron told the site during a set visit -- "It's all '80s dance moves, and it's completely random. The running man, a few moves from MC Hammer - what is it, 'Can't Touch This,' right? Yeah, it's pretty funny." Ah, yes Zac. It's "Can't Touch This." But I wonder -- is he too legit to quit?

We're only a few months away from Sex and the City's big movie release. Of course, that leads to the question: What television show will get made into a movie next? We usually get geek and retro fare making the jump, but since this is a romantic comedy, the door will be open for a whole bunch of recently-wrapped series. Arrested Development is getting yet another stab at life, but what else could make it?

MTV recently talked with Birds of America co-stars Lauren Graham and Matthew Perry about the possibility of their super-popular shows becoming feature films. Graham, well, she says she doesn't know, no matter how many times people keep asking her -- and she has no idea what it would be about: "Nothing much happened; we just talked a lot." That's true, but a feature film could allow Amy Sherman-Palladino to finally give us that ending she referenced for so long, but that we never got, leaving us in an unfulfilled, post-Gilmore disappointment. Perry, meanwhile, says: "everyone's running around doing different things. I think we're trying to organize a thing soon." However, by "thing" he means a dinner with the Friends cast. Sneaky bugger.

Should SatC end up being a big money maker, methinks we'll at least hear a bunch of possible plans for these old shows. It's just too bad that it's too late for more My So-Called Life.

Which wrapped television series would you like to see on the big screen?

Dysfunctional families and indie films go together like peanut butter and chocolate, and Birds of America, directed by playwright Craig Lucas, has dysfunction in abundance. Morrie (Matthew Perry), who raised his younger siblings Jay (Ben Foster) and Ida (Ginnifer Goodwin) after their father's death, now lives in the family home with his wife, Betty (Lauren Graham). Morrie is a college prof desperately seeking tenure, and the person who is most in a position to make that happen for Morrie is his friend Paul (Gary Wilmes), who lives right next door with his wife, Laura (Hilary Swank), in their perfect house, with their perfectly maintained flower bed, with their perfectly adorable infant.

Morrie is one of those guys who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, and he represses his emotions so tightly that the stress of it all has manifested itself in a case of constipation so extreme he has a home office set-up in his bathroom so he can work while trying to ... work all that out. Betty, meanwhile, wants desperately to have a perfect life and a child like Laura, but Morrie won't consider parenthood until he makes tenure. Since their whole future happiness is dependent upon whether Paul recommends Morrie for tenure, both Morrie and Betty go overboard in trying not to offend Paul and Laura -- even to the extent of not complaining that Laura's dog does his business in Morrie and Betty's yard. Unlike Morrie, the dog does not have a constipation issue, so they are constantly cleaning up after it.

I don't know why everyone keeps referring to 17 -- the Zac Efron movie in which a 40-year-old guy is suddenly a teen again -- as Big in reverse. Or, as The Hollywood Reporter writes today: "turns the concept of Big on its head." I guess nobody remembers the George Burns-becomes-Charlie Schlatter comedy 18 Again! Either that or it's simply easier to reference Big because it's a million times more well-known. Anyway, there's another movie 17 will make people think of: Back to the Future. Apparently, Efron's character (aka Matthew Perry's character as a teen) becomes the object of a crush -- from his own daughter! Playing the poor girl, who obviously doesn't realize her own Electra complex, is Michelle Trachtenberg. Also joining the cast, which includes Leslie Mann as Efron/Perry's wife and Trachtenberg's mom, is Melora Hardin ("Jan" on TV's The Office) as a high school principal.

So here's what I find strange about the new plot revelation: how is it the daughter doesn't recognize her own father as a young man? Hasn't everyone seen photos of their parents from when they were younger? At least with Back to the Future, in Lea Thompson's defense she hadn't yet birthed Michael J. Fox, and she had no way of ever having seen his face before he traveled back in time and became the object of her desires. In both scenarios, it is pretty gross to think about seriously. According to the main plot synopsis for 17, the reason Efron/Perry enrolls in high school is to be closer to his kids (hey, another movie this reminds me of: Mrs. Doubtfire). I guess he truly gets his wish in a terribly sick sort of way. Production on 17 begins this month.

Those rough mornings when the sleep is still in Zac Efron's eyes, when he has to get up early, wash up, and then spend the day at work singing and dancing -- do you think that he imagines himself growing up into Matthew Perry? Not to knock Mr. Perry. He had his own share of teen work. He was the teen paramour in an episode of Just the Ten of Us, and he took a Monkeys daughter to the prom in She's Out of Control. But he was never a teen heartthrob, wallpapering the bedroom walls of young girls all over the country. Nevertheless, The Hollywood Reporter has posted that he'll play the adult Zac Efron in the upcoming Big-like comedy, 17.

As you might remember from our previous coverage of the film, the whole thing focuses on a middle-aged guy (Perry) who wakes up one day and discovers that he's 17 again. Not 17 in mind, but 17 in body -- Zac Efron's body, to be exact. As THR describes: "In order to be close to his children, he enrolls in the same school as them." You can imagine how that'll work. I wonder if he'll then go to a dance and start busting out the dance moves of the '80s. That could be sweet. What I don't get is how he knows exactly what age he is. If that happened to me, I wouldn't know if I was 16, 17, or 18. Can you spot your 17-year-old face from the years that surround it? Maybe going back in physical time also allows one to inherently know how old they are. However it works, production begins next month, so we'll have more Efron in no time.

Remember that indie comedy that Patrick Walsh blogged about last month? The Laws of Motion, as the flick is called, is Matthew Perry's latest attempt to find some solid, cinematic comedic success, and teams him up with everyone's favorite funny girl Hilary Swank... er, wait. The comedy is about a husband (Perry) in the typical adult male complex -- his job and community are suffocating him and he is "enduring headaches caused by his free-spirited brother and sister." Swank tops off the the man's pressure by playing the annoyingly-perfect neighbor. Ben Foster, who you might remember from his overly-emotional artist stint in Six Feet Under, or as the big-winged Angel in X3, was already cast as Perry's brother, and now there's a sister to boot.

The carefree sis will be played by Ginnifer Goodwin. If you're a cable television fan, you might recognize her from her time as Bill Paxton's third wife in the polygamist series Big Love. She's also the woman who played Vivian Cash in Walk the Line. Motion comes from the pen of Elyse Friedman, whose lone previous credit is the romantic drama Suddenly Naked, and will be the sophomore directorial stint for Craig Lucas, who last helmed The Dying Gaul. He's also the guy who wrote the mainstream Prelude to a Kiss, and the less well-known dysfunctional marriage movie with Campbell Scott called The Secret Lives of Dentists. This film, which is currently shooting in Connecticut, also has one more name on the roster over at IMDb -- Justin Long -- that cheerleading dork from Dodgeball and the cool, human embodiment of a Mac. Any bets on which way this comedy will go - big flop or funny success? I honestly have no idea.

Matthew Perry is a funny guy. His charm alone is (almost) enough to carry the stunningly self-important Studio 60, and before that he was great on some no-name sitcom with that chick from Office Space. His movie roles haven't been quite as successful -- I don't think we'll be seeing The Whole Eleven Yards any time soon, and you'd have to work hard to find romantic comedies as unmemorable as Fools Rush In, Three to Tango, and Serving Sara -- but he's giving it another shot. Perry will star with everyone's favorite Million Dollar Baby, Hilary Swank, in the independent comedy Laws of Motion. We all know Perry can do comedy, but Swank? Unless we're counting The Next Karate Kid, she's not the first person I think of when I want a hearty chuckle. We'll see if she can pull it off.

Perry will play "a husband struggling with life in a repressive career and community along with headaches caused by his free-spirited brother and sister." Swank will play "the all-too-perfect neighbor of Perry's harried character" -- a supporting role. Ben Foster is in negotiations to play Perry's brother. Foster is probably best known for playing Angel in X-Men: The Last Stand, but I immediately thought of the unbelievably whiny Russell on Six Feet Under. Laws of Motion will be co-produced by Hilary Swank Productions, which I am assuming is Hilary Swank's production company. The film is supposed to start shooting this month, but the press release doesn't mention a writer or director. Hopefully, they've got those minor details sorted out!

Chris Evans has reportedly agreed to turn in his white-hot Human Torch tights and appear as Officer Jon Baker, better known as partner to one Officer Francis L. Poncherello of CHiPs fame. That role will be filled by Wilmer Valderrama as these two hop on motorcycles and take this early 80s show onto the big screen.

Unlike the rumored previous casting of George Lopez and Matthew Perry, at least Evans and Valderrama both look marginally like their TV counterparts, although Evans could probably never pull off the wholesomeness that Larry Wilcox always managed to convey. Erik Estrada has a slightly sleazy edge to his Ponch, but you could imagine Wilcox sipping a tall glass of milk while staring off into space, dreaming about the better life. He was the ultimate motorcycle-ridin' Boy Scout.

Memo to Hollywood: At this point, just about everything from my childhood days has been strip-mined to oblivion, leaving only the PBS memories untouched. Please start making some original material before The Great Space Coaster: The Movie opens at my local multiplex.

Seeing Courteney Cox in Zoom yesterday made me think, "Gee, I wonder what the heck the rest of the Friends are up to these days." This gave me an excellent opportunity to satisfy my freakish obsession for IMDb for the day by diving deep to see what else Cox-Arquette and her former cast mates are up to. If you're an IMDb addict like me, come take a look with me ...

Cox's close friend Jennifer Aniston has had a busy time in her personal life, what with breaking things off with Brad and hooking up with Vince (what do you think? Did she get an upgrade there?). Aniston wrapped 2006 early with The Break-Up, but appears to be gearing up for a busy 2007 with three films on her plate: Diary, a thriller whose description is "a married woman's diary is stolen and used against her"; The Senator's Wife, which, at the moment, shows no one but Aniston in the cast; and the one that shows the most promise from this vantage point, Wanted, in which she plays a framed cop who must break out of prison with her cellmate, played by Meryl Streep.