Jim Carrey has signed on to star in Mark Waters' adaptation of the children's book Mr. Popper's Penguins.  The story centers on Mr. Popper, a house painter who receives a male penguin in the mail from Antarctica (who's the poor mailman who has to work Antarctica?), then a female penguin, and those two produce ten more penguins.  Needing to keep them all fed and sheltered, Mr. Popper decides to turn the penguins into performers.

In June, we reported that Carrey, along with Jack Black and Owen Wilson, were among the actors under consideration to play Popper after Ben Stiller left the project along with his Greenberg director Noah Baumbach.  Carrey recently starred in A Christmas Carol and I'm still waiting for I Love You Philip Morris to hit theaters.  Yesterday, we reported that Summit Entertainment was courting Carrey to star in the comedy Under Cover. Waters' previous credits include The Spiderwick Chronicles and Mean Girls.  According to Deadline, Jared Stern (Bolt) is writing the latest version of a script by Sean Anders & John Morris (She's Out of My League).