We’ve got a couple of quick casting stories for you this afternoon.  First up Samuel L. Jackson is set to star opposite Hailee Steinfeld in the indie, Barely Lethal.  According to Variety, “the story follows a 16-year-old international assassin yearning for a “normal” adolescence who fakes her own death and enrolls as a senior in a suburban high school. Jackson will play her mentor who trains her in the program.”  I’m curious to see how director Kyle Newman will handle his follow-up to the surprisingly enjoyable, Fanboys.  I’m also interested to see how it will compare to the recent “teenage assassin” flick, Hanna, even though this is a comedy.

Hit the jump for news on John Slattery‘s directorial debut, God’s Pocket.

With AMC’s award-winning series Mad Men returning tonight, I recently had the chance to participate in a roundtable interview with John Slattery.  Since the cast is always guarded when talking about upcoming storylines, most of the interview covered the big storylines of last season, what surprised him, the LSD episode and how they filmed it, how he’s directing two episodes this season, did he try and work in certain camera angles or a long tracking shot, deleted scenes, Roger and Joan’s relationship, how much does Matthew Weiner tell him in advance, and a lot more.  Hit the jump to either read or listen to what Slattery had to say.

AMC has released a batch of images from the upcoming season six premiere of Mad Men, titled “The Doorway”.  As is executive producer/showrunner Matthew Weiner’s wont, the images reveal extremely little by way of plot details, but this is our first semi-look at footage from the new season.  It’s clear that Megan (Jessica Pare) is sticking around for the time-being, and sideburns appear to be all the range among the male castmembers as we move firmly into the 1970s with this new season.  The series has yet to stumble as far as I’m concerned (season five came the closest to being a misstep re: Megan), and so I’m incredibly eager to dive back into the Mad Men world this weekend.  How great is it to have new episodes of Mad Men and Game of Thrones on the same night?

Hit the jump to take a look at the new images, and check back here on Collider later this week for Steve’s interviews with Weiner and the cast regarding the upcoming season.  Mad Men season six kicks off with a two-hour premiere on Sunday, April 7th on AMC.

Though the clips featured in the latest Mad Men promo from AMC all come from last season (because as we all know, creator Matthew Weiner keeps an iron grip around most of the promotional material), the message is still clear: moving forward, things are still not going to get easier for Don Draper (Jon Hamm).

The show has also released a telling poster that highlights Don’s internal struggle as he tries to move forward with his life but keeps getting pulled back into his old ways.  There have also been a few glamourous promo photos that tease the show’s movement into the 1970s.  For the latest TV trailer and a few thoughts on the upcoming season, hit the jump.

AMC has slowly been teasing us with promotional pictures and teasers for the upcoming season of Mad Men, but we’ve finally made the jump to color with this latest batch.  In them we see some characters not featured in the other promos, including Stan and his magnificent beard, as well as Ginsberg posing as Colonel Sanders.  Joan is resplendent with her deep cerulean blue gown while Megan’s hair is in need of a warning beacon for incoming jets.  Above all, there’s baby Eugene, who is now a toddler from the Renaissance.  Hit the jump for the pics.

Notoriously tight-lipped Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner has allowed AMC to drop a few more tidbits about the upcoming sixth season of the juggernaut drama in a new on-air promo.  The spot features some of the recently released black and white images that show all of the principle cast draped in late 1960s fashion, but now made slightly 3D (ok, AMC).  It also features the tagline, “You’re invited to the affair of the year.”

Like Season Five, the upcoming season will kick off with a two-hour premiere (without a title as of yet) that will be written by Weiner and directed by executive producer Scott Hornbacher.  The show will also start an hour earlier than its regular time slot (9 p.m.) which it will return to the following week (10 p.m.) with an episode written by Jonathan Igla and Weiner, and directed by series star Jon Hamm.  For the promo spot and more, hit the jump.

It’s a good day to be a Mad Men fan.  Early this morning we learned that season six of the celebrated AMC drama series is poised to kick off on April 7th with a two-hour premiere, and now the network has released a batch of elegant images of the cast from the upcoming season.  Naturally, everyone is drinking and smoking and laughing.  It’s a fine way of easing fans back into the world of Mad Men, and the images are pretty revealing in that we can see that (spoiler alert) Pete has sideburns!  Shocking stuff.

Hit the jump to check out the images, which feature Jon Hamm, January Jones, Jessica Pare, Kiernan Shipka, Elizabeth Moss, John Slattery, Christina Hendricks, Vincent Kartheiser, Aaron Stanton, Rich Sommer, and Robert Morse.  Season six of Mad Men premieres on AMC on April 7th.

The first trailer for In Our Nature has been released in advance of the March 10 premiere at SXSW.  The indie drama features two of our favorite actors from two of the best dramas of the last decade in Mad Men‘s John Slattery and Friday Night Lights‘ Zach Gilford, starring alongside Jena Malone and Gabrielle Union.  Plus, the premise is believable and fraught with potential: Gilford takes his girlfriend (Malone) up to the family country house for a romantic weekend, but runs into his estranged father (Slattery), who shows up with his own young girlfriend (Union).  From there, the trailer fails to separate itself from the pack of indie dramas about troubled families that precede In Our Nature.  (Pretty sure there’s a scene where the two young leads scream their troubles away.)  But trailers typically don’t accomplish that even if the film does, so I remain hopeful for the feature debut of writer/director Brian Salverson.

Hit the jump for the trailer and a few screencaps.

Style, debauchery, deception, adultery, jealousy. That about sums up AMC’s Mad Men, which returns for it’s fifth season on March 25th. We already brought you the series promo and some fantastic marketing, but now the creative team has gotten a little more specific.  They’ve released some short character trailers featuring your favorite ad men and women. So far they’ve highlighted Peggy (Elisabeth Moss), Joan (Christina Hendricks), Roger (John Slattery) and, of course, Don (Jon Hamm). Mad Men returns for it’s fifth season on March 25th on AMC. Hit the jump to check out the character trailers.

In preparation for the two-hour season five premiere of Mad Men on March 25^th, AMC has rolled out some new marketing. It’s a tricky thing to do, and do well, when your popular show centers on the men and women of an ad agency, but as usual they’ve nailed it. With all the color and clutter of New York City’s skyline vying for your visual attention, these clean and minimalist billboards are refreshing, eye-catching and iconic. We’ve also got the first promo video for season five which ties in nicely to the rest of the marketing. Mad Men, starring Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss and Vincent Kartheiser, returns to AMC on March 25^th. Hit the jump to check out the marketing.

A trailer for the drama Return has gone online. The film stars Linda Cardellini (Freaks and Geeks) as a returned soldier struggling to fit back into the life she left behind. It’s a familiar story that’s been told quite a few times before, but Return tells it from a female’s point of view. It’s hard to judge the movie based on the trailer as its success will likely hinge on the performances, but Cardellini looks to be doing some solid work here. We don’t see much of co-stars Michael Shannon (Boardwalk Empire) and John Slattery (Mad Men), but the trailer’s more a mood piece than a full-on plot explanation.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer. Directed by Liza Johnson, Return opens in select theaters February 10th and will be available VOD on February 28th.

Writer/director George Nolfi’s The Adjustment Bureau is neither fish nor fowl, but is engaging enough that it may find a second life on home video. Matt Damon stars as David Norris, a promising political figure who loses his shot at being in congress, but meets Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt), who he immediately falls in love with and leads him to the best speech of his life. Nolfi adapted the Phillip K. Dick story into a fantasy love story, where Norris comes to see that there are things/people (including Anthony Mackie, John Slattery and Terrence Stamp) that control his fate. Our review of the Blu-ray of The Adjustment Bureau follows after the jump.

Universal has provided us with seven clips from Matt Damon’s upcoming romance/thriller The Adjustment Bureau.  Written and directed by George Nolfi (writer of The Bourne Ultimatum), the film is based on a short story by Philip K. Dick entitled Adjustment Team and centers on the apparently forbidden relationship between politician David Norris (Damon) and Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt).  As the story goes, the two are kept apart by a mysterious team of adjusters who claim it’s in everyone’s best interest if they go their separate ways.  Hit the jump to watch the clips.

The Adjustment Bureau opens on March 4th.  In addition to Damon and Blunt, the film also stars Terence Stamp, John Slattery (Mad Men), and Anthony Mackie (The Hurt Locker).

Universal has released a US and a UK poster for their upcoming thriller The Adjustment Bureau.  Based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, the plot centers on an ambitious politician (played by Matt Damon) who falls in love with a ballet dancer (Emily Blunt) but discovers that mysterious forces and a team of shadowy figures are trying to keep them apart.  The film also stars Anthony Mackie, John Slattery, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Michael Kelly, and Terence Stamp.

Hit the jump to check out the posters.  While the film was originally slated to open this past September, it is now set to open on March 4, 2011.

Remember when John Slattery’s character Roger Sterling published his memoirs in season 4 of Mad Men? Well, it turns out it wasn’t just a prop for the hit AMC TV series. Sterling’s Gold is actually going to be available at a bookstore near you in November. Published by Grove/Atlantic it was too good of an opportunity not to grab for both the show’s creator and publisher since Mad Men is one of the most popular TV shows with critics, winning Emmys and other accolades since its inception.

Subtitled “Wit and Wisdom of an Ad Man”, the memoir offers the golden rules that mad ad man Roger Sterling Jr. lives by. The show’s creator Matthew Weiner basically inhabited Sterling’s mind wrote the preface and as well as the text. John Slattery’s head shot will grace the cover, and that’s his only involvement in the book, as far as I know. More about Sterling’s Gold and a sneak peak at some of Roger’s pearls of wisdom after the jump.