With a slew of daytime syndicated talk show projects jockeying for a fall 2012 berth, a big one is entering the fray for fall 2013. Queen Latifah is set to host a new daytime talk show that Flavor Unit, her company with Shakim Compere, will co-produce with Will Smith and James Lassiter’s Overbrook Entertainment and…

2ND UPDATE, 12:25 AM: First there was the $35,800-per-person fundraising dinner tonight with Will Smith hosted by his Overbrook Entertainment producing partner and manager James Lassiter. Then President Obama headed over to the home of Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffith for a somewhat lower-key event aimed at…

EXCLUSIVE: Universal Pictures has quietly dropped out of Clue, one of the seven Hasbro games properties the studio contracted to make into movies in a ground-breaking six-year exclusive deal signed in 2008. Clue becomes the third project out of seven to be dropped by Universal (Monopoly and Magic, The Gathering were…

Screenwriter John Hlavin has been set by Sony Pictures to write Risk, a contemporary global action thriller based on the venerable board game. Pic is a co-production between Hasbro Entertainment and Overbrook Entertainment, and the producers are Brian Goldner, Bennett Schneir and James Lassiter. Hlavin has written on T…

Emanuel Nunez has exited CAA. Nunez is the financing wiz who helped put bring offshore companies into Hollywood, particularly at a time in 2008 when those companies decided to bet on specific talent. He was a key point person on making the match between DreamWorks partners Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider with…

EXCLUSIVE: Glee creator Ryan Murphy is Sony Pictures' top choice to direct a re-imagining of the Broadway musical Annie, with Willow Smith playing the lovable orphan. The project was recently set at Sony Pictures by Overbrook Entertainment partners James Lassiter, Ken Stovitz, Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith in the…

Paramount Pictures closed a deal to acquire Wheeler Dealers, a pitch for a drama that will be written by Michael Lerner. It’s based on the true story of a group of Miami twenty-somethings who landed a $300 million Pentagon contract to acquire massive stockpiles of old Chinese ammunition that wound up being sent to…

EXCLUSIVE: After a bidding war by multiple networks, Fox has nabbed the rights to a series adaptation of the 2005 hit romantic comedy Hitch. It comes from Will Smith and James Lassiter’s Overbrook Entertainment and The Proposal writer Pete Chiarelli who will pen the project. It’s described as an action-packed one-hour…

EXCLUSIVE: Chelsea Lately host Chelsea Handler has landed a juicy role opposite Reese Witherspoon, Tom Hardy and Chris Pine in This Means War, the McG-directed 20th Century Fox comedy. Handler will play the best friend and confidante of a woman (Witherspoon) who is lusted after by two best friends. The pals are CIA…

EXCLUSIVE: Will Smith and James Lassiter’s Overbrook Entertainment and The Proposal writer Pete Chiarelli are behind a series adaptation of the hit 2005 romantic comedy Hitch, which has several networks bidding on it. Chiarelli will pen the series project, described as an action-packed one-hour, for Sony Pictures TV…

EXCLUSIVE: Will Smith has attached himself to star in and produce The Legend Of Cain, an epic re-telling of the Biblical sibling tale, this time with a vampiric twist. Smith will play Cain, the original Bad Boy, and he will produce with Overbrook Entertainment partners Jada Pinkett Smith (his wife), James Lassiter…