Racists On a Plane

Or at least near where they make the Boeing planes. Also today: Spielberg's next project, a good show gets renewed, some news about your favorite TV stars, and another rocker goes to Broadway.

Little known indie director Steven Spielberg has been given another project to do, despite his somewhat unproven track record. He'll next helm War Horse, a screenplay based on a popular British children's book that was later turned into a successful play. It's about a boy risking life above the trenches in WWI on a quest to find his beloved horse. So it's a more romantic Equus, basically! A Very Long Engagement meets Zoo (never, ever see that "movie"). After that Spielberg's Tintin will come out. No word on the Lincoln biopic he's been working on with Tony Kushner for years now. Might it be dead? [EW]

FX's wonderful new series Justified, based on the adventures of an Elmore Leonard character, has been renewed for a second season. Are you watching the show? You really should be. Smart acting, smart writing, fun lighthearted plotlines with a pleasing twinge of menace. More importantly, though, you have read Elmore Leonard, right? If not, stop reading this right now and go get Glitz. Or The Switch. Or Touch. Or Out of Sight. Or Maximum Bob. Just get all of them. [THR]

WEE-OOO, WEE-OOO, WEE-OOO!! That's the Bones Fan siren. We have Bones news! OK, are you both listening? Good. So Emily Deschanel, whose sister does indie movies and has a lauded career in the wistful music industry while she is acting on the lukewarm Fox semi-hit Bones, has been cast alongside Kathleen Turner in a movie! Yes, it's called Baby Geniuses 3: The Secret of Bear Mountain: The Search for Anna Chlumsky. Ha, no, we wish. It is actually called The Perfect Family and is about a devout Catholic woman (Turner) dealing with her lesbian lawyer daughter (Anna Chlumsky Deschanel). [Variety] Meanwhile, David Boreanz is sorry he cheated on his wife. (And then turned evil after having sex and killed a librarian's girlfriend.) [EW]

J.J. Abrams keeps making the hits! His pilot Undercovers was just picked up by a very excited NBC, who apparently lurrrrved the first episode. The show is about spies who are married to each other and have to come out of retirement for a new gig. An exciting thing about the series is that it's a major network project on which both leads are black and it's not an "urban" show. It's just a show, with black actors in the main parts, because they were the best people for the job. Kind of refreshing, right? What is not refreshing is that the actress playing the lady who comes out of retirement after a long time is my age. How long could I have been retired?? [THR]

Oh hey, speaking of theatre, Sting is working on a musical with Brian Yorkie, who just won a Pulitzer for Next to Normal. Guess he saw Duncan Sheik and Green Day and all the rest making out like bandits on the White Way and decided he wanted in too. This will only be good if it's called The Fortress and it's about that one he built around your heart. [Deadline]

Racism really is trendy these days! Samuel L. Jackson and angry playwright/terrible movie director Neil LaBute (The Wicker Man — not the beeeeees!!!!) are teaming up to create a series for Showtime about white supremacists living up in the cedar tree mists of the Pacific Northwest. Jackson hasn't ruled out taking a part on the show. Variety is all "LaBute and Jackson tackled racism before in 2008's Lakeview Terrace," which like like saying "David Zucker and Leslie Nielsen tackled police corruption before in The Naked Gun." [Variety]