Variety announced today that Peter Segal, who did make the very funny Tommy Boy but is also responsible for countless comedic failures, is directing the comedy Neighborhood Watch, which is about a man who takes over his local Neighborhood Watch only to find out that the neighborhood is haunted. Hilarity, no doubt, ensues.

We shudder to think which comedian will be lined up to make this classic late-night TNT movie. My vote goes to Davie Spade.

The Captain Marvel movie - currently titled Billy Batson And The Legend Of Shazam!, both due to legal issues over the ownership of the "Captain Marvel" name and to bring it closer in line with the current DC comic featuring the character - has been in the works for a long time; the current script, written by Tim Burton collaborator John August (who wrote the screenplays for Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Corpse Bride, amongst other movies), has been finished since before last year's writer's strike, and Dwayne Johnson has already announced that he'll be playing the movie's bad guy, Black Adam.

While Segal is already scheduled to direct 2010's sequel to this summer's Get Smart next year, it's possible that The Legend of Shazam! may be the next movie he directs; he's currently also developing a tennis-pro comedy as part of the deal, but Shazam! may be further along the development cycle. Will 2011 see the Big Red Cheese take on the Avengers at the box office? Between this news and Warners' stated focus on superhero fare in years to come, that's beginning to look very likely.

Segal, Ewing set first-look deal at WB [Variety]

Here's the official synopsis for Get Smart, which opens June 20:

The action comedy "Get Smart" sends CONTROL agent Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell) on his most dangerous and important mission: to thwart the latest plot for world domination by the evil crime syndicate known as KAOS.

It also happens to be his very first mission.

When the headquarters of secret U.S. spy agency CONTROL is attacked and the identities of its agents compromised, the Chief (Alan Arkin) has no choice but to promote his ever-eager analyst Maxwell Smart, who has always dreamt of working in the field alongside his idol, stalwart superstar Agent 23 (Dwayne Johnson). Smart is partnered instead with the only other agent whose identity has not been compromised: the lovely-but-lethal veteran
Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway). As Smart and 99 get closer to unraveling KAOS' master plan—and each other—they discover that key KAOS operative Siegfried (Terence Stamp) and his sidekick, Shtarker (Ken Davitian), are scheming to cash in with their network of terror. With no field experience and little time, Smart—armed with nothing but a few spy-tech gadgets and his unbridled enthusiasm—must defeat KAOS if he is to save the day.

In a new presskit, director Peter Segal says he took the show's familiar jokes and characters and brought them to "today's headline-worthy situations." Although it's still CONTROL and KAOS, with no Al-Qaeda or Afghanistan or anything. And the movie has an unlikely influence: Batman Begins.

I liked the way that film reinvented the Batman franchise by telling an origin story in a way that hadn't been previously explored. With that in mind, we start from the beginning and show how Maxwell Smart came to be an agent, how he met 99, and his first encounter with KAOS villain Siegfried—all those elements already in place when the show aired...

As the movie opens, Max is hard at work deciphering suspicious international chatter from surveillance tapes and preparing voluminous reports for his CONTROL colleagues. He is such a valuable analyst that his boss, the Chief, is regrettably unable to offer him the one thing Max wants most in life and has been training for so diligently: to become a field agent..

Max is partnered, by default, with Agent 99, the only top CONTROL operative whose identity was uncompromised by the recent breach. Says Anne Hathaway, who stars in the role, "99 is disappointed, to say the least, about working with a rookie, and everything he does in the first five minutes of their meeting only confirms her worst fears. So not only does Max have to prove himself to his boss, he has to prove himself worthy of working alongside this strong-willed woman who is obviously not going to take it easy on him."

Finally, the Cone of Silence "is now completely digital, with a sophisticated hand-held activation system and multiple ports." But it still doesn't work. And the shoe-phone is still around as well.