The former Shield star, himself having been once duped in a Ponzi scheme decidedly smaller than the $50 billion variety that took down untold numbers of Hollywood investors, needs a new gig. Enter House of Cards, which Chiklis has been developing at FX since February. The series focuses on the head of the scam; Chiklis will executive produce but not star, offering his unique technical counsel from his own pyramid-plot days:

For Chiklis, his monetary loss was compounded by his regret of convincing friends to invest too.

"That was the worst part of it," he said. "It's one thing when you lose your own money, but here you lose your friends' money while your true-hearts-hope was to make them money."

Meta! FX is in the hunt for a showrunner as we speak.

• Chiklis developing Ponzi scheme TV series [The Live Feed]

In what's being referred to as a "winning, whimsical" story splitting the difference between Being John Malkovich and Lars and the Real Girl, Carell would portray a man who develops a close relationship with a beaver hand puppet, "treating it as something close to a human creature with human feelings." Every studio around wants it, but producer Anonymous Content is waiting to land a director before actively shopping the project.

On that front, Jay Roach has already turned it down, while other candidates' replies await. Obviously, of course, this sounds like a job for Brett Ratner, whose string of hits speaks for itself and whose finely honed sense of metaphor can only enhance to the multidimensionality of the title character. That is a DVD commentary we would pay good money to hear.

• Steve Carell could make 'Beaver' speak [THR]

"We are very excited to bring 'Robotech' to the big screen," Maguire said. "There is a rich mythology that will be a great foundation for a sophisticated, smart and entertaining film." [...]

A sprawling sci-fi epic, "Robotech" takes place at a time when Earth has developed giant robots from the technology on an alien spacecraft that crashed on a South Pacific isle. Mankind is forced to use the technology to fend off three successive waves of alien invasions. The first invasion concerns a battle with a race of giant warriors who seek to retrieve their flagship's energy source known as "protoculture," and the planet's survival ends up in the hands of two young pilots.

In positioning Robotech as the "sophisticated" and "smart" robot-related project, it's clear that Maguire is throwing down the gauntlet at the feet of Michael Bay, who has already established Transformers as the franchise of choice for those who prefer their huge droid flicks heavy on explosions and light on ideas. But Bay, as we all know, is hardly one to shy away from a challenge, and later today he'll doubtlessly answer Maguire's challenge on his blog, promising his fans that Transformers 2 will contain "500 million percent more shit blowing up," and pledging to "leave that sophisticated and smart tea-party bullshit to Tobey and his giant fucking robot pussies."

• Maguire, WB attack the big screen with 'Robotech' [THR]