• Each year, surveying Oscar's Best Actress pool sets off a bout of hand wringing over the absence of serious parts for serious female actresses, but this year the low may actually be below the bottom of the pool. After a very short list of sure things (Meryl, Carey Mulligan in An Education and Gabourey Sidibe for Precious) the field becomes a wide open wasteland with almost no true attention getting roles leaping out. It's gotten so bad, writes the Hollywood Reporter, that "some are talking about Sandra Bullock." [Hollywood Reporter]

• As if answering the question raised by the item above...On the strength of 2012, This Is It, Angels and Demons and Terminator:Salvation Sony Pictures is having its best year at the international box office in its history with grosses currently at $1.63 billion. Fox, however, holds the international top slot this year with $1.79 billion in receipts and counting [Variety]

•Kent Alterman will be your next man to blame for why Comedy Central isn't funnier. The former New Line exec was named head of programming for the network. [Variety]

• The first plug pulled at the new Less Is Less Miramax — Richard Linklater's Liars (A To E), a romantic comedy that was to have starred Kat Dennings and Rebecca Hall. [Movieline]

• Disney has put in dry dock/beached/torpedoed/depth charged/recalled to submarine base/(insert your preferred nautical analogy here) a remake of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea set to be helmed by McG. Cheated of his chance to ruin the submarine genre forever, the great director will instead focus his attentions on the thriller Dead Spy Running. [Variety]

• As long as there are film studios, there will be some executive who will have the bright idea to let Robin Williams star in yet another surefire failure of a comedy. Anna Faris is currently in talks to play Williams' daughter in Wedding Banned for Touchstone. [Hollywood Reporter]

• MTV has acquired the exclusive rights to air This Is It, the Michael Jackson concert rehearsal documentary. [Hollywood Reporter]

Richard LaGravenese, stalwart screenwriter who recently directed P.S. I Love You, has landed another helming gig. He'll both direct and write a romaaanncceeee called Man and Wife. Here's hoping there will be some sort of empowering karaoke or montage moment. [Variety]

Jon Hamm has signed on to star opposite Ben Affleck in a "romantic crime thriller" called The Town, which Affleck is also directing. No, sadly, Hamm and Affleck will not be romancing each other. Rebecca Hall, so lively and smart in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, will play the lady. Nuts. [THR]

Quietly masterful director Richard Linklater looks to have lined up his next project. He'll make Liars (A-E) for Scott Rudin and Miramax. The movie is about a lady on her way to the Obama inauguration who revisits old boyfriends on the way. So it's sort of like Broken Flowers, only instead of ending with a weary middle-aged man standing in a rainy intersection, bereft and alone, it'll end with Hope. [Variety]

Wes Anderson will unveil his latest work, a stop-motion animation movie based on Roald Dahl's The Fantastic Mr. Fox, will premiere at the London Film Festival. The movie sports voice work provided by small-time slouches like George Clooney, Meryl Streep, and Bill Murray. I really hope it's wonderful. [Variety]

Alcon has paid high six figures for Prisoners, a thriller spec about a man who goes vigilante and locks a dude in his basement. Awhile back Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale had been attached to star (Wahlberg as the vigilante, Bale as a policeman investigating the incident), but now they're no longer aboard. Hopefully this will free Bale up to do a damn comedy, because... dag. [THR]

Hm. Josh Radnor, somewhat irksome star of How I Met Your Mother (about five young adults in New York tryin' to make their way), will make his film debut with HappyThankYouMorePlease, about six young adults in New York tryin' to make their way. Somehow he landed a pretty nice cast: Zoe Kazan, Kate Mara, Richard Jenkins (who will not play a young adult, I'm guessing), and Liev's theatre-lovin' younger brother Pablo Schreiber. [Variety]

Oh look. They're going to make a movie version of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Well, they already made a version in the early 80s, but this will be bigger budget and fancy and all that! And probably done with computertrons. In other news, you no longer have a childhood. [THR]

Tell your little sister (or creepy older brother) to sit down and take deep breaths. Because her (or his) favorite show, ABC's gymnastics deep-dive Make It Or Break It, has been renewed for another 10 episodes. Because it's a hit! [Variety]

· It's a dense read, but in a nutshell: SAG sent along a helpful open letter advising indie producers they are not totally fucked if they sell their waiver-aided film to a major studio or its specialty division. Let the gross overspending begin!

· Speaking of which, Movie City News has its own Vegas-style odds on Sundance's likeliest sellers. Currently Brooklyn's Finest and I Love You Phillip Morris share 2:1 odds; our favorite bidding-war candidates Cold Souls and the guaranteed world-shocker Bronson aren't even listed, so you know, grain of salt, etc.

· In a bit of a self-imposed film-criticism hiatus following her distinguished Listy Award triumph, EW critic Lisa Schwarzbaum is adapting well to Sundance's environmental-reporting beat.

· When Sundance Hype Goes Right, Vol. XVI: The Guardian's Danny Leigh strolls down memory lane with fest legend Richard Linklater: "Linklater, for all his missteps, is a godsend. No, scratch that - because of his missteps, Linklater is a godsend. His work since Slacker has not delivered anything like a consistent vein of greatness, but a ragbag of genres as wilfully random as any film-maker anywhere."

· When Sundance Hype Goes Wrong, Vol. MCLXXXIV: If you don't think The Greatest is in fact the greatest, fest director Geoff Gilmore would like a word with you.

· Can't join us in Park City? Here's your consolation prize: 10 downloadable short films on iTunes. You can thank us later.