I have misled you once again. The Coens’ follow-up to Burn After Reading is actually described as a black comedy in this Variety report, but it is titled A Serious Man. Stage actor Michael Stuhlbarg and former Spin City regular Richard Kind will star. (I know, not exactly Pitt and Clooney, right?) “Set in 1967, story centers on Larry Gopnik (Stuhlbarg), a Midwestern professor whose life begins to unravel when his wife sets out to leave him and his socially inept brother (Kind) won't move out of the house. Shooting is set to start at the beginning of next month in Minneapolis.”

Here’s a sentence from the Hollywood Reporter that shouldn’t exactly shock anyone: “As Tom Cruise goes about writing the next chapter in his career, he's developing an interest in comic book movies.” Cruise is teaming up with Spider-Man maven Sam Raimi for an adaptation of Sleeper, and we can all be thankful it’s not a remake of the Woody Allen comedy. “Written by Ed Brubaker with art by Sean Phillips, Sleeper, which ran from 2003-05, centers on an operative whose fusion with an alien artifact makes him impervious to pain and allows him to pass it on to others through skin contact. He is placed undercover in a villainous organization by an intelligence agency and falls for a member of the group, named Miss Misery.” I smell Cruise’s Battlefield Earth.

Yet another graphic novel headed for the big screen is Julius, to be directed by F. Gary Gray (The Italian Job). Sadly, it’s not a biopic about the founder of Orange Julius, but rather an urban crime thriller based on Julius Caesar. Per Variety, Gray “has a vision for this adaptation that will satirize obsessive consumerism while providing a thrilling ride for audiences.” Good luck with that.

Related:
"Freaky Little People": The Coens Burn On
Tom Cruise Still Creepy, Still Not Funny