Sony has set release dates for a few of its big comedy titles hitting theaters next year:

• 21 Jump Street 2 – The highly-anticipated comedy sequel will hit theaters on June 6, 2014, where it will open opposite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller and stars Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum return for a story that sees the characters infiltrating a college campus.  For much more info on the sequel, click here.
• Think Like a Man Too – The sequel to the relationship comedy based on the book by Steve Harvey will open in theaters on June 20, 2014 opposite How to Train Your Dragon 2.
• Sex Tape – Director Jake Kasdan’s (Walk Hard) comedy will open on July 2, 2014 opposite Disney’s Maleficent.  The film stars Jason Segel and possibly Cameron Diaz as a couple who set out to find their sex tape that has mysteriously disappeared.

To those of you who’ve always wanted Cameron Diaz to make a sex tape, you’re in luck (sorta)!  Diaz is reported to be in early talks for a reunion with Bad Teacher director Jake Kasdan and star Jason Segel for Sex Tape.  According to the write-up, Diaz was in the mix for female leads about a year go but now negotiations are taking place with a deal in the near future.  The Kate Angelo (The Back-up Plan) script centers on “a married couple who take a night off from their kids and decide to spice up their love life by making a sex tape. When they wake up the next morning, the tape is missing, prompting them to figure out who took it and how to get it back.”  Hit the jump for more on Sex Tape, plus the latest casting addition to Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland.

NBC has purchased a new half-hour comedy pilot from 50/50 scribe Will Reiser and his sister Robin Reiser.  Per EW, the new show titled The High Life “centers on a newly sober mother and wife who must deal with life’s many stresses—without drinking.”  Will and Robin will serve as writers and executive producers on the series alongside Willie Mercer and New Girl’s Jake Kasdan and JJ Philbin, who will also executive produce.

We just learned that the upcoming ninth season of The Office will be the last for that long-running comedy show, and this fall also kicks off the final season of NBC comedy staple 30 Rock as well. Moreover, with new showrunners and a less-than-ideal Friday timeslot, Community’s days may also be numbered.  The phenomenal Parks and Recreation still looks to be going strong, but the Peacock will likely be in dire need of new half-hour comedies come Fall 2013.  Reiser’s screenplay for the underrated 50/50 was excellent, so hopefully The High Life has a successful development and makes it to series.

Earlier today, Fox announced the lineup for their fall 2012 schedule.  Glee will now air on Thursday nights, and the network has created an all-comedy block on Tuesday nights with New Girl, Raising Hope, and two new comedy series.  The network has now unveiled full trailers for said comedy series (and one that debuts midseason), so we now have a better idea of what to expect from the network’s new offerings.  Despite having a terrible title, The Mindy Project actually looks really promising.  Kaling, who also created the series, stars as a young physician who’s trying to break some bad habits in her personal life.  Kaling is likeable and funny as the lead, and she’s buoyed by a strong supporting cast that includes Chris Messina (Damages) and Richard Schiff (The West Wing).  The Bill Hader and Ed Helms cameos don’t hurt either.  I like what I’ve seen, and it looks like The Mindy Project should make for a fine companion to New Girl on Tuesday nights.

Hit the jump to watch the trailers for all the new Fox comedies, including two other promising additions: Midseason series The Goodwin Games from How I Met Your Mother creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas and the sibling comedy Ben and Kate.

Shawn Levy (Real Steel) has daddy issues; or, at least, the protagonist of his next project does.  In a recent  acquisition by Fox 2000 and Levy’s company, 21 Laps Entertainment, author Joel Stein’s upcoming book, “Man Made: A Stupid Quest for Masculinity,” has been set up for production.  The story is a non-fiction account of a man’s journey to discover his masculinity in reaction to learning that he’s about to have a baby boy.  His journey takes him on a 24-hour shift with L.A. firefighters, basic training sessions with the  US Marine Corps and even into the octagon with UFC fighter, Randy Couture (The Expendables).   Though Levy is on board to produce, director Jake Kasdan (Bad Teacher) will be behind the camera for Man Made.  Hit the jump for more.

Bad Teacher director Jake Kasdan is in talks to re-team with Jason Segel for the high-concept comedy Sex Tape.  Per Variety, Segel will star “as half of a happily married couple who use a night off from their parental duties to spice up their love life by making a sex tape. When they awake the following morning, they discover the tape has gone missing, prompting them to figure out who took it and how to get it back.”  Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) was previously attached to direct, but dropped out due to scheduling issues.  Last October, Reese Witherspoon, Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, Rose Byrne, and Jennifer Garner were in the mix to play the female lead, but there’s currently no word on which actresses (if any) are still circling the role.

Sony Pictures paid in the low seven figures for Kate Angelo‘s script, but the success of Bad Teacher likely helped Kasdan into the director’s seat for such a high-priority project.  I’ve enjoyed all of Kasdan’s films (Walk Hard is downright brilliant), and his participation along with Segel definitely makes Sex Tape a flick to keep on my radar, although I’m curious to see who will be cast as the female lead.

A box office blessing while being critically commonplace, Columbia Pictures’ Bad Teacher was recently released on DVD and Blu-ray. The Jake Kasdan (Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story) picture, starring Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake, follows foul-mouthed, gold-digging middle school teacher Elizabeth Halsey (Diaz) in her quest to raise funds for a boob job in hopes of landing a wealthy suitor. That’s about as deep as the film’s plot gets as half-hearted attempts at character development suffer from poor editing and disjointed pacing. Collider’s Matt Goldberg has praised the film’s humor while our Bill Graham pointed out its flaws in his review. Hit the jump to see where I stand and for a look at what you can expect on the DVD.

I still can’t get over how much I liked Bad Teacher and how hard and consistently I laughed throughout.  It’s not one of my favorite movies of the year, but it was certainly the best surprise thus far.  That’s why I’m delighted to hear that screenwriters Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg and director Jake Kasdan are re-teaming for an untitled comedy at Sony.  Here’s the logline according to Deadline: “After a Supercuts manager advises his best friend to break off his engagement, he unexpectedly falls in love with the jilted fiancee, testing both his new romance and his friendship.”  I imagine the worst part isn’t the risk of losing your girlfriend or your best friend.  It’s the realization of working at Supercuts.

There’s no word on a sequel to Bad Teacher even though the film grossed $215 million worldwide off a $30 million budget.  If a sequel doesn’t happen, I would be completely okay with that. In a related story, Eisneberg and Stupnitsky worked on the screenplay for Ghostbusters III and Deadline has a discouraging update on the long-in-development sequel.

We live in an interesting world where nearly every studio tries to make sure their staple film is PG-13, yet for comedies, they trend towards being vulgar with an R rating. Columbia Pictures’ Bad Teacher doesn’t buck that trend for R-rated comedies with overly adult-themed ingredients yet it never aspires to anything greater than garnering some easy laughs. Cameron Diaz stars as a superficial middle school teacher that just doesn’t care until she has to take on responsibility when her sugar daddy leaves her. While the headliners might be Diaz and co-star Justin Timberlake, it’s the cast of characters around them that shine and give the film a little charm. Although director Jake Kasdan never gives us more than a few smart laughs outside of mostly coarse jokes, the target audience will likely get a kick from the film. Hit the jump to see what Bad Teacher has in store.

When director Jake Kasdan was sent the script that Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky had written for Bad Teacher, he thought it was hilarious and asked if he could make the film. The story was so funny that Kasdan only made very minor changes to the script, and luckily the studio let them go make the R-rated comedy they wanted to make, with the final movie turning out to be very close to the original script that they all fell in love with.

At the film’s press day, Jake Kasdan spoke to Collider for this exclusive interview, in which he talked about how he loved the humor and tone of Bad Teacher, how he’s planning an extended version of the film and six to eight deleted scenes for the DVD/Blu-ray release, and how much fun it was to get Justin Timberlake to sing so badly in the film. He also talked about how he got involved with producing Jennifer Westfeldt’s film Friends with Kids, how he ended up directing the pilot for the Fox comedy The New Girl, set for the Fall and starring Zooey Deschanel, that he’s trying to figure out what he wants to do next, and what he thinks Dewey Cox is up to now. Check out what he had to say after the jump:

I don’t know what to expect from Bad Teacher, but I have high hopes.  From the promotional material, Cameron Diaz appears to pull no punches in her performance as a foul-mouthed, amoral teacher.  That’s commendable, but Diaz is no sure thing as a comedic performer.  I’m in it for the supporting cast.  I don’t know that you can find a more affable duo than Jason Segel and Justin Timberlake.  I can’t claim familiarity with Lucy Punch’s work, but I like her weird energy as an eager fellow teacher in the brief clips we’ve seen.  And in the new international gag reel, it’s John Michael Higgins and Paul Bates that get the biggest laugh.

Directed by Jake Kasdan (Walk Hard), Bad Teacher opens on June 24.  Watch the gag reel after the break.  (Beware of NSFW language.)

Sony has sent over four clips from director Jake Kasdan’s (Walk Hard) Bad Teacher.  Starring Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake, Lucy Punch, John Michael Higgins, and Jason Segel, the film’s about a foul-mouthed, ruthless, and inappropriate teacher (Diaz) and what she’s willing to do to get out of her day job.

While Diaz movies have definitely been hit or miss for the last few years, I think Bad Teacher looks really funny.  In addition, I think Timberlake and Segel are great, so I’m really hoping this one is worth our time.  Watch the clips after the jump and look for interviews with the cast very soon.

Upfronts are next week, which means every broadcast network has a day set aside to announce new series and renewal decisions.  Fox is getting an early start with a series order for the comedy pilot The New Girl (formerly titled Chicks and Dicks).  Zooey Deschanel stars as “a quirky teacher who moves in with three guys — the cynic, the player and the man-child — after being dumped.”  Jake M. Johnson, Max Greenfield, and Damon Wayans Jr. play the three guys; Hannah Simone also stars.  Wayans Jr. currently stars in the ABC sitcom Happy Endings, which is on the bubble.  If ABC renews the series, Fox will have to recast Wayans’ role.  No Strings Attached writer Liz Meriwether created the series.  Jake Kasdan (Walk Hard) directed the single-camera pilot.

[Update: A new report suggests Fox is near a deal to pick up the J.J. Abrams-produced drama Alcatraz.  Details after the break.]

[Update 2: Click here for more Fox scheduling news, including the cancellation of Breaking In, Traffic Light, The Chicago Code, and Human Target]

Hit the jump for more on the shape of Fox in the coming television year.

A few weeks ago, Columbia released a red-band trailer for the upcoming very R-rated comedy Bad Teacher. Today, a cleaner theatrical trailer has been released. It’s pretty much the same as the red-band, with far less foul language and a couple of added scenes. Seeing as how this comedy seems to be predicated on the fact that it’s really dirty, the clean trailer doesn’t really work as well as the red-band one.

Directed by Jake Kasdan (Freaks and Geeks, Walk Hard), the film features a stacked comedy ensemble that includes Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake, Jason Segel, Phyllis Smith, and Lucy Punch. Diaz plays a pretty filthy teacher who decides to whip her students into shape in hopes of winning a cash prize that she will put towards breast implants to hopefully woo the Timberlake’s “nice guy” character. Hit the jump to watch the trailer. Bad Teacher opens on June 24^th.

New posters have been released for Duncan Jones’ Source Code, Jake Kasdan’s Bad Teacher, Justin Lin’s Fast Five, Raja Gosnell’s The Smurfs and Rob Marshall’s Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.  Some are international posters and some are domestic.  Hit the jump to check them out: