Good Looking Kids to Be Made Ugly for Our Entertainment

Easy A just sounds more and more intriguing, though little else coming out of the West does. It's still all remakes and reboots and robots and, sometimes, carnival barkers.

That Easy A movie—a teen flick loosely based on The Scarlet Letter—is shaping up to have a pretty respectable cast. Lisa Kudrow, Stanley Tucci, Patricia Clarkson, Thomas Haden Church, and Malcom McDowell have all been announced as costars. Oh, and also Penn Badgley from Gossip Girl. Feh. [Variety]

A&E has canceled Patrick Swayze's clunky bad lieutenant drama The Beast, which is sad for him. [Variety]

Speaking of beasts, British heartthrob Alex Pettyfer and American oddity Mary-Kate Olsen have joined High School Musical's Vanessa Hudgens in the film Beastly, a retelling of the Beauty and the Beast story. Pettyfer will play a handsome but arrogant little shit who gets transformed into an ugly person by Olsen and, presumably, saved by Hudgens. Unlike its animated predecessor, we do not see Oscar nominations in its future. [Variety]

Oh, that's cute. Heroes is still bothering to hire actors to be on their show. Robert Knepper, who played T-Bag on Prison Break, has joined the cast as a villain referred to as the "Carnival Barker." Ohhh twissssted. [THR]

Dimension has tapped Dan Milano, who's written for Adult Swim, to craft the script for their planned Short Circuit remake. Because what the world needs now is more remakes. And robots. Always robots. [Variety]

Terrence Howard is prepping a TV project based on the life of Ronald Farwell, an LAPD detective who infiltrated the Black Panthers in the late 60s and 70s. [Variety]

CBS says that they see light at the end of the tunnel, recession and ad revenue wise. Funny because most of their viewers are also heading towards a bright light. (Because they're old. And dying.) [THR]