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.

Chewie was one of the instantly notable scripts on the 2011 Black List of Hollywood’s best unproduced screenplays, because it’s about Star Wars.  The spec script by Evan Susser and Van Robichaux is described as “satirical behind the scenes look at the making of Star Wars through the eyes of Peter Mayhew,” the 7’3″ actor who maintained his job as a hospital worker while he played Chewbacca.

Mayhew recently tweeted, “Yes, we’re working with Kyle Newman and the team on CHEWIE, The Movie and are hopeful it can move forward.”  Heat Vision followed up with a report Newman, the director of the Star Wars love letter Fanboys, acquired Mayhew’s life rights to further develop the script.  There is no specific mention of Newman directing, but his involvement should help move the project along regardless.  George Lucas gave an early approval to Fanboys, enough to lend the movie the official Star Wars sound effects.  Chewie has a terribly appealing premise, but one that is probably dependent on Lucasfilm’s involvement for proper execution.  The project can only benefit from having pre-approved folks like Newman and Mayhew in its corner.  Hit the jump for more on Mayhew.

Death Ray Films is developing a romantic comedy that takes place in the world of online film journalists.  Called Journies, it’s being put together as a starring vehicle for Jamie King (Sin City) and it’s being written and directed by Grant Boucher.  Here’s the synopsis:

Journies is a romantic comedy about an aspiring online journalist who gets the scoop of a lifetime when a one-on-one interview turns into an unexpected date with Hollywood’s hottest young ingénue.

Producer Robert Sanchez says, “It’s Notting Hill with a touch of Entourage for the younger, hipper, Comic-Con crowd. Grant’s writing is amazing and his take on our story nailed it.”

Robert Sanchez, Kyle Newman (Fanboys) and Jaime King are producing.  Congrats to IESB’s Robert Sanchez for finally getting his movie about the world of online film journalists off the ground.  I expect he’s going to fill this thing up with plenty of cameos.  Needless to say, he’s going to get a lot of free coverage.

In his book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, Chuck Klosterman lays out what is essentially the unifying theory of Johnny Carson – the idea that the advent of cable and the home video market, not to mention the Internet, has splintered public tastes to the point that there’s no longer any such thing as a shared cultural experience anymore; according to Klosterman, the last patch of common ground was Johnny Carson, and once he disappeared from the airwaves, he took the last link in our pop culture chain with him.

Klosterman had a point, one which grows ever more relevant with each passing year – but every so often, a cultural event comes along with enough significance to achieve true water cooler status. Case in point: the long-awaited debut of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace in 1999, a breathlessly anticipated extension of a film franchise that was virtually inescapable in its day. When George Lucas announced he was working on a prequel trilogy that would fill in the story behind the original films, pretty much everyone was at least curious to see what they’d look like – and the hardcore fans were on pins and needles.