Though writer/director Adam McKay is currently busy writing the script for the long-awaited sequel to Anchorman with Will Ferrell (thank the Maker!), it appears he’s lining up a fairly ambitious project as his follow-up to Anchorman 2.  McKay is in talks to develop to direct the remake of the 1971 comedy Uptown Saturday Night.  The project has been in development for years with Will Smith and Denzel Washington attached to star, but the addition of McKay makes the remake all the more enticing.  Hit the jump for more.

It looks like Will Smith has narrowed his many possible projects down to The City That Sailed or Men in Black 3.  After over a year of speculation, Variety reports that the actor will likely make one of the projects his next feature.  While, the plot of MIB 3 is unknown, we all know what kind of movie it will be: sci-fi action-adventure.  But The City that Sailed is an adventure-fantasy we first reported on back in July of last year.  Here’s what I wrote about back then:

Written by Andrew Niccol, the story follows a New York City street magician whose daughter, because of family circumstances (read: Daddy likes the whores), lives in England. In exploring a lighthouse one day, the girl discovers a room with magic candles and wishes to be reunited with her father, causing the island of Manhattan to break away and drift across the Atlantic, the magic candles apparently not having access to priceline.com or any comparable service.  I guess the other option is that she could just walk across…if it’s not too deep.

The “Daddy likes the whores,” was pure speculation on my part, but what was true is that Francis Lawrence, who teamed with Smith on I Am Legend, was to direct.  Now, that’s not the case and currently the project has yet to find a director.  Hit the jump to learn about all the other projects that were on Smith’s plate.

Latino Review reports that Alfred Hitchock’s Suspicion is getting remade with Will Smith attached to star and produce.  I agree with scooper “Pinche Taco” when it comes to Hitchcock: he can be imitated, but never remade…-ed.  For those who don’t know, Hitchcock’s 1941 film starred Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine and was about a woman (Fontaine) who marries a man (Grant) whom she eventually suspects is trying to kill her.  Hitchcock’s film had a compromised ending where the studio demanded a “happy” conclusion.  While I’m not crazy about remaking any Hitchcock movie (Disturbia is the best yet simply because it’s not terrible), Suspicion is not among the director’s best and there’s room to do a fresh take (which would be a re-adaptation of the source material, Francis Iles’ 1932 novel Before the Fact).

Smith would play the Grant role and I support it simply because I want to see if he can play a bad guy.  He certainly has the charm the role requires, but he’s never played anything close to villain so I’d like to see him challenge himself as an actor in that respect.  As long as they don’t have Smith committing suicide via jellyfish, there’s hope.

Then again, Smith may do another movie instead.  He has plenty to choose from.  Hit the jump for just a few of the films he may do next.

Pajiba is reporting that Denzel Washington and Will Smith are in talks to co-star in a remake of Uptown Saturday Night.  The 1974 comedy was directed by Sidney Poitier and starred Poitier and Bill Cosby as two friends who meet up at a nightclub and get robbed of their wallets only to discover the next morning that one of their wallets contained a winning lottery ticket.  Mark and Robb Cullen (Cop Out) are currently rewriting the script with David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers) attached to direct.

As fun as this team up might be, you should keep in mind that this film is still in its earliest stages of development.  Both stars have a lot of projects coming up and if you’re a regular reader of this site, you know that there is a lot of shuffling involved before a project is properly set up and go ahead with production.  I’m going to keep my fingers crossed for this one though since I would like to see this acting duo working together, especially in a comedy.

As always, we’ll keep you updated.