If writer-directors Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant had put more effort into their new film Hell Baby, they could have had one of the best parodies of recent horror movies.  The film has some huge laughs as well as some insight into the genre’s weaknesses, but Lennon and Garant’s sketch comedy roots wreck the picture in the worst way.  They’re content to let their scenes run on way too long, they have no idea how to tie their scenes together, and the result feels like we’re in the middle of something that’s being workshopped rather than a finished feature.  Despite a memorable performance from Keegan Michael Key, Hell Baby feels like a gigantic waste of potential that keeps us interested because we’re waiting for the next great joke.

The 2013 Sundance Film Festival is in the midst of unveiling its lineups, and today we’ve got the first images from some films that will be playing as part of the Park City at Midnight program.  Briefly:

• Ass Backwards – Directed by Chris Nelson, written by June Diane Raphael and Casey Wilson, starring Raphael, Wilson, Vincent D’Onofrio, Alicia Silverstone, Jon Cryer, and Brian Geraghty.
• Hell Baby – Written and directed by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, starring Rob Corddry, Leslie Bibb, Keegan Michael Key, Riki Lindhome, Paul Scheer, and Rob Huebel.
• In Fear – Directed and story by Jeremy Lovering, starring Alice Englert, Iain De Caestecker, and Allen Leech.
• kink – Directed by Christina Voros.

Hit the jump to check out the images and synopses.  The 2013 Sundance Film Festival runs from January 17 – 27.

If you like your movie trailers short on plot, heavy on the ad-libbing and redder than a Romney state, then you’ll love this new red-band effort from Movie 43.  The Peter Farrelly ensemble comedy stars everyone you’ve ever heard of in Hollywood and even some you haven’t.  Movie 43 has released another red-band trailer previously, but the new one mostly focuses on a stream of improv from Jason Sudeikis who is admiring Kristen Bell’s crotch.

Starring Elizabeth Banks, Kristen Bell, Halle Berry, Leslie Bibb, Kate Bosworth, Gerard Butler and everyone else, Movie 43 opens on January 25th, 2013.  Hit the jump to see the new red-band trailer.

CBS Films has done a bit of release date shuffling for two of their upcoming releases.  First up, director Michael Hoffman’s remake of the 1966 caper comedy Gambit has been moved up from January 11th, 2013 to October 12th of this year (per Box Office Mojo).  Cameron Diaz and Colin Firth star as partners in a con to sell a fake Monet painting, and the film has a script by Joel and Ethan Coen.  Given the caliber of talent involved, the January date was always a bit of a puzzler.  The film will now square off against Ben Affleck’s stellar looking period thriller Argo and the Kevin James “comedy” Here Comes the Boom.  Hit the jump for more, including release date news concerning The Grudge director Takashi Shimizu’s airplane thriller 7500.

Reno 911! stars and non-stop screenwriters Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant are set to make their co-directorial debut on the horror comedy Hell Baby, and they’ve found their two leads. Darko Entertainment announced today that Rob Corddry and Leslie Bibb (Talladega Nights) have signed on to star in the comedy that centers on a young expectant couple who moves in to New Orleans most haunted fixer-upper and calls upon The Vatican’s elite exorcism team to save them from a demonic baby. Lennon and Garant wrote the script, will co-direct, and plan to star as the Vatican’s exorcism team.

Lennon and Garant have made a nice living in recent years writing younger-skewing comedies like The Pacifier and the Night at the Museum films (they even wrote a book entitled Writing Movies for Fun and Profit). Hell Baby sounds like it has hints of Rosemary’s Baby, and for Corddry’s sake as a comedian I hope they’ve written a more adult comedy. Bibb currently stars on the ABC series GCB and Corddry recently wrapped the zombie adaptation Warm Bodies. Hit the jump to read the press release.

The first trailer and poster for the adaptation of Thomas Berger’s noir thriller Meeting Evil has gone online. If you’ve ever wanted to see Samuel L. Jackson essentially play the Devil, this is your movie. Luke Wilson plays a real estate salesman who is sent into a depression after being fired from his job. One day he ends up going on a joy ride with a stranger named Richie that brings the two down a path towards violence. The movie itself doesn’t look terrible, but it certainly feels like straight-to-DVD fare. The acting is fine, but the trailer pretty much shows the entire movie and I wasn’t thrilled by the results.

Hit the jump to check the trailer out for yourself. Directed by Chris Fisher (S. Darko), the film also stars Leslie Bibb. Meeting Evil will be available VOD on March 30th and hits theaters on May 4th.

Air travel is already annoying enough without supernatural terror going down.  There’s not enough leg room, they now charge you for every little thing (in our lifetime, major airlines will charge you to use the bathroom), and it does everything in its power to diminish the magic of air travel.  I suppose we’ll have to settle for dark magic or whatever freaky thing is attacking the passengers of 7500, the new film from Takashi Shimizu (The Grudge).  I really hope that it’s attacking because some guy didn’t turn off his electronic device during take-off. Please let that be the reason.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  The film stars Ryan Kwanten, Leslie Bibb, Nicky Whelan, Jerry Ferrera, Christian Serratos, Jamie Chung, and Amy Smart.  7500 opens August 31st.

While on the set of Takashi Shimizu’s upcoming airplane based horror film 7500, I got to sit down with a few other journalists and Leslie Bibb. We’ll have the full set report closer to the film’s release date, but today we have a little scoop on her upcoming role as Wonder Woman. Seriously. Kinda. Bibb plays the superhero in a segment of Peter and Bobby Farrelly‘s comedy anthology Movie 43. Her short features Jason Sudekis as Batman, Bobby Cannavale (The Other Guys) as a “jacked-up” Batman, Kristen Bell as Supergirl, and John Hodgman as Penguin. Hit the jump to see what Bibb had to say about her stint as Wonder Woman and the segment as a whole (which also stars Justin Long and Uma Thurman), and to watch the original short that inspired their version called Robin’s Big Date.

We’ve got a couple of casting stories for you this afternoon. First up, Amy Smart, Ryan Kwanten (True Blood), and Leslie Bibb (Zookeeper) have signed on for the thriller 7500. Takashi Shimizu (The Grudge) is directing the pic from a script by Craig Rosenberg (The Uninvited). Yesterday we brought you some first synopses from a number of films being sold at AFM this week, and 7500 was among them. The pic tells the story of a group of passengers who begin to experience frightening supernatural phenomena after a passenger mysteriously dies in flight. Those remaining are left to wonder if they’re next. Variety reports that Kwanten and Smart will play a married couple who board the flight with two of their longtime friends for a trip to Japan, while Bibb will play “a stewardess involved in a complicated and secret relationship.”

Hit the jump for casting news concerning the indie thriller The East, which stars Brit Marling and Ellen Page.

I didn’t want to write this review because it would involve me giving more thought to repulsive, selfish characters who populate a comedy that’s almost entirely devoid of laughs.  There’s something fascinating about a movie that sets up jokes and then forgets to deliver a punchline.  And because awful character delivering non-jokes isn’t enough, the film is saddled with limp, thoughtless direction that misses every opportunity for a laugh.   When A Good Old Fashioned isn’t being clichéd, it’s being dull, and sometimes it’s both, but it’s hardly ever funny.

Samuel Goldwyn Films has sent us over seven new images from A Good Old Fashioned Orgy.  The movie is about a bunch of friends who have had a lot of good times at a beach house but when the house is about to be sold, they decide to go out with a (gang)bang.  The ensemble cast features Jason Sudeikis, Leslie Bibb, Lake Bell, Michelle Borth, Nick Kroll, Tyler Labine, Angela Sarafyan, Lindsay Sloane, Martin Starr, Lucy Punch, and Will Forte.

Hit the jump to check out the images.  A Good Old Fashioned Orgy opens September 2nd.

The trailer for writers/directors Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck’s comedy A Good Old Fashioned Orgy is now available online. Starring Jason Sudeikis, Will Forte, Lucy Punch, Leslie Bibb, Lindsay Sloane, Tyler Labine, and Lake Bell, the film tells the story of a 30 year-old man/child (Sudeikis) who decides to throw one last bash at the Hampton residence his parents are on the verge of selling. Judging from the trailer, the pic almost looks like an uninterrupted barrage of partying and general immaturity. In short, I’m looking forward to it. That said, I can’t help but wonder how I can get my hands on one of those “Labor Day Orgy” t-shirts.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer. A Good Old Fashioned Orgy opens to select theaters this September 2nd.

With director Frank Coraci’s (Click, The Wedding Singer) Zookeeper opening July 8, we’ve been sent six clips from the film.  Starring Kevin James in a remix of Night at the Museum (instead of a museum, he’s at a zoo), the pic is probably going to make a boat load of cash for Sony if James’ track record is any indication.  In case you don’t pay attention to box office numbers, James is pretty close to a sure thing.  While many thought Paul Blart: Mall Cop was a joke, it went on to make $183 at the worldwide box office.  Even Grown Ups, which got beaten with a club by critics, went on to make $271 million worldwide.  So, even though you couldn’t pay me to watch Zookeeper, I know kids are going to love it and it’s going to make a lot of coin.  Hit the jump for the clips and full synopsis.  Zookeeper also stars Rosario Dawson and Leslie Bibb and it features the voices of Cher, Nick Nolte, Adam Sandler, and Sylvester Stallone.

There are lots of movies I’m looking forward to and I’m happy when I get to report on films like Rampart or The Wettest County in the World.  But the site isn’t simply about the films I like.  Sometimes I have to report on films that crumple up my soul and chuck it in a waste bin of sadness.  With that in mind, the trailer for Zookeeper has gone online.  The “family film” stars Kevin James as a zookeeper who discovers that animals can talk and that they’ll help him win back the girl of his dreams (Leslie Bibb) even though he’s clearly going to end up with a fellow zookeeper played by Rosario Dawson.  Oh, and the animals are voiced by celebrities like Cher, Nick Nolte, Adam Sandler, and Sylvester Stallone because of course they are.

Hit the jump to see the trailer filled with slapstick and uncomfortable production placement for TGI Friday’s.  Zookeeper opens July 8th, but maybe go see something else instead, like paint drying.

Sony Pictures and Samuel Goldwyn Films have picked up the distribution rights to A Good Old Fashioned Orgy.  According to Variety, the story–co-directed by Pete Huyck and Alex Gregory (Frasier)–centers on “a group of 30-somethings who spend every summer weekend throwing elaborate theme parties and eventually throw one final bash – an orgy.”  The comedy will star Saturday Night Live‘s Jason Sudeikis who’s poised to have a breakout year.  He’ll next be seen in theater in the comedy Hall Pass and again later this year alongside Jason Bateman and Charlie Day in Horrible Bosses.  Sony and Goldwyn plan to release Orgy in late summer.

According to THR, the film has an outstanding cast that not only includes Sudeikis, but also Tyler Labine, Leslie Bibb, Will Forte, Lucy Punch, Lake Bell, Michelle Borth, Martin Starr, Nick Kroll, Lindsay Sloaneand, and David Koechner.