Is Tom Cruise’s burly, foul-mouthed producer alter-ego, Les Grossman headed to the big screen on his own?

Looks that way. Grossman, who made his screen debut in 2008’s raunch comedy Tropic Thunder also took the stage Sunday at the MTV Movie Awards, where he busted out in a rap dance that looked similar to the mating rituals of a silverback gorilla. Here’s the press release for the film, written as if Grossman is the real deal.

Film fans who already have one too many overbearing, insane producers to deal with, will be relieved to note that for the time being, Grossman is just a parody, albeit one fired pretty close to the heart of the industry.

Check it out:  

‘Paramount Pictures and MTV Films announced today that they are set to develop a movie around mega-producer Les Grossman. The announcement comes on the heels of Grossman’s groundbreaking and visionary production of the soon-to-be Emmy® award-winning 2010 MTV Movie Awards Sunday night. Tom Cruise, along with Ben Stiller and Stuart Cornfeld of Red Hour Films will produce and have secured the life rights to Grossman.            

Grossman, best known as a mega producer, has most recently mentored talents such as Rob Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. In 2008, Grossman was introduced to the masses by Stiller in the comedy “Tropic Thunder” where the famed producer had a cameo playing himself.

Said Ben Stiller: “Les Grossman’s life story is an inspiring tale of the classic human struggle to achieve greatness against all odds. He has assured me he plans to quote, ‘F**king  kill the sh*t out of this movie and make Citizen f**king Kane look like a piece of crap home movie by the time we are done.’ I am honored to be working with him.”    

When asked what the screenplay was about Grossman responded: “To quote my great friend Kirk Lazarus, ‘I don’t read the script, the script reads me.’”

Adam Goodman, Paramount Film Group President said, “Everything I learned in this business, I’ve learned from Les. I started out as his assistant, and from the first day he threw his desk at me when I got his lunch order wrong, I have loved him like a father.  I am forever grateful to Ben and Stuart Cornfeld and their ability to secure his highly-coveted life rights,”

Tom Cruise is said to be in talks to portray Grossman in the film.

Michael Bacall (“Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”) will write the script. He is repped by WME.

WME also reps Ben Stiller and Red Hour Films.’

Last week we ran a quick little blurb about a possible trailer to a “secret” JJ Abrams monster movie that would show in front of Iron Man 2. The rumors were flying out of left field on what it could be, was it a secret like Cloverfield, was it the prequel or sequel to the now famed handycam monster film? Who knows?

Today we have the official trailer for you of Super 8. Below I have taken a screen cap from the trailer that shows what I believe to be the monster emerging from it’s captivity.

Whatever this movie becomes, it is way too long for me to wait to find out till it’s release next summer.

Enjoy the trailer:

What do you all think about the trailer? Is it something you want to see? Check it out and do let us know. This is something that intrigues me like anything else JJ puts his hands around. Since the days of Alias I have been enamored with this man!

Tom Cruise and producer J.J. Abrams (also the director of 2006′s Mission: Impossible 3) have been searching the film world to find the right person to helm the next chapter in the blockbuster spy series, but of all the possible names and contenders, I don’t think anyone would have expected Brad Bird!

Oscar-winner Bird has never made the foray into live-action filmmaking, but his animated features, The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille are all widely considered to be masterpieces in their own right. Bird has also been hard at work on getting a live-action project into production, but plans for his proposed drama 1906 have stalled recently, meaning that he could conceivably take the gig with M:I 4.

In addition to Bird, some other names are being tossed around for the director’s chair, most notably Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer and Edgar Wright, the British wunderkind that gave us Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and the wildly anticipated Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. However, Wright would most likely be too busy with the press and promotion for Pilgrim to jump into production on M:I 4, as Paramount heads reportedly want the film underway by this summer to be ready for release by May of next year.

So, your mission, should you choose to accept it: tell us what you think of animation master Brad Bird taking the Impossible reigns.

The 2010 Sundance Film Festival got underway Thursday, and the first major acquisition has already been made by Paramount, who picked up U.S. Documentary contender Waiting For Superman.

Superman is directed by David Guggenheim, the acclaimed filmmaker behind 2006′s breakout documentary hit and Academy Award-winner An Inconvenient Truth.

The Sundance Festival’s program guide explains that the film “offers hope by exploring innovate approaches taken by education reformers and charter schools – in reshaping the culture – refused to leave the students behind.”

It is speculated that the film’s producers may have given Paramount’s bid preference, considering the company’s involvement with An Inconvenient Truth, and their massively successful ad campaign and awards pleas.

Time will tell if Waiting for Superman will achieve the crossover appeal of Truth, which was heavily garnered by intense public support by former Vice-President Al Gore.

Like Truth, Waiting For Superman will be carried and distributed under the Paramount Vantage label, which has been practically defunct since the brand failed to see the desired long-term returns after early success with No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood.

Despite the film still being in theaters, Paramount Pictures is already hoping to capitalize on the unexpected success of Paranormal Activity after the film’s run is over.

Paramount’s chairman has announced the company has acquired the rights to a potential Paranormal Activity 2, and is looking for a plot that would make sense as a sequel to the hit of this fall.

In just a month at theaters, Paranormal Activity has grossed $62.5 million–not bad for a movie that was made for only $15,000. In addition to being made on a low-budget, Paramount also bought the movie for a fairly low price, and has spent less than the usual amount on marketing for the movie as well.

With those factors in play, plus the continued box office success of the film, Paranormal Activity could easily end up being one of the most profitable films in Paramount’s history. Thus, it’s no surprise that Paramount would want to continue bringing in that kind of profit with a sequel.

However, making sequels in general is a risky move, particularly when the precursor has been successful. With a flick like Paranormal Activity, whose success came out of nowhere, trying to match the appeal that brought that success is even more difficult than usual.

Paranormal Activity has continuously been compared to 1999′s The Blair Witch Project which was, like Paranormal Activity, a low-budget horror film that saw unexpected success. A sequel to the film was attempted the following year and brought in less than $30 million–a drastically lower take than the $140 million seen by the first film. The same type of box office drop could easily happen with a follow-up to Paranormal Activity.

It’s not set in stone that Paramount will go ahead with a Paranormal Activity sequel, just that they own the rights to do so. For now, we can expect to see Paranormal Activity continue to thrive at the box office, now with the possibility of a follow-up on the horizon.

Tropic Thunder producer Justin Theroux has joined up with Paramount to produce the comedy flick Air Guitar.

Inspired by recent looks at air guitar, including the documentary Air Guitar Nation and the book To Air is Human, the movie will be a humorous take on world of competitive air guitar (yes, there is such a thing).

Mike Lisbe and Nate Reger will be writing the script for Paramount, and while no specific plot has been revealed yet, the movie will likely follow the classic theme of underdog-rising-to-fame.

Air Guitar still has a ways to go before it can hit production, but hopefully as more is revealed about the film it continues to sound as entertaining as it does just as a concept.

Nickelodeon, a division of Viacom and a sister company to Paramount (a company that seems to be grabbing up everything in sight lately), has grabbed the rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. The rights were originally held by Mirage Group and 4Kids Entertainment.

This is great news for the successful franchise, because Paramount is now planning to push a new Turtles film to theaters by 2012, with one of the producers of 300, Scott Mednick, behind the film. It’s unknown whether the film will be a CGI affair like the most recent TMNT was, but I hope they’ll go the route of the original films and learn from Where the Wild Things Are‘s example.

Nickelodeon will of course be developing a CG animated show for their network, which will probably be a coup for their programming, as the turtles have never been unpopular with the masses.

This was a hefty deal for the studio, at a pricey $60 million. That’s $60 million for characters that have existed in pop culture for 25 years in comic books, cartoon shows, and movies.

While most studios have closed their wallets for the year, as far as development spending goes, Paramount recently spent $2 million to purchase a pitch from writers Aline Brosh McKenna and Simon Kinberg.

Nothing has been revealed about the film’s plot, but with the two writers coming from very different backgrounds genre-wise, this information will be anxiously awaited.

McKenna’s writing has generally leaned towards the ‘chick flick’ category, with such films as The Devil Wears Prada and 27 Dresses to her name. Kinberg, on the other hand, tends more towards the action-drama side of things, with Mr. and Mrs. Smith and X-Men: The Last Stand both to his credit.

With such different areas of expertise, it will be interesting to see how the two writers managed to fuse their respective styles into something Paramount was so eager to snatch up.

McKenna and Kinberg worked with Bad Robot Productions execs J.J. Abrams and Bryan Burk  to sharpen the material before passing it on to Paramount, and the film will be produced under the Bad Robot name, with the company’s film chief serving as executive producer.