Allison Janney is always a good person to add to any cast, and Melissa McCarthy obviously agrees, as she’s cast the West Wing actress in her directorial debut, Tammy, according to Variety.

McCarthy co-wrote the script and will co-direct with her hubby Ben Falcone, and she’ll also star as a woman (McCarthy) who loses her job at a fast food restaurant and then finds out her husband is cheating on her. She goes on a road trip with her foul-mouthed, hard-drinking grandmother (Sarandon) to escape the problems in her life.

Janney is up to play Tammy’s mother, although there’s no info on exactly how she fits into the plot or how large the role is. Shooting on the movie kicks off next month.

Chris O’Dowd

Chris O’Dowd’s career continues to flourish with the news that he’s in talks to join Ted Melfi’s movie St. Vincent De Van Nuys, according to Deadline, which would see him star alongside Bill Murray and Melissa McCarthy.

The film is about a hard-working single mother (McCarthy) who hands her child over to a cantankerous old man (Murray) to watch over him while she tries to make ends meet with her various jobs. O’Dowd will play the local parish priest, who counsels the old man. He’d sympathetic to the situation, but shocked at all of the horrible habits and lessons Murray’s character chooses to pass down to the impressionable 12-year-old kid.

Shooting on the indie movie is set to star this July.

Melissa McCarthy is busy proving that you don’t have to be 21 and a stick figure to be a female movie star. She’s currently the hottest comedy actress around and now Deadline reports that she’s been offered the female lead in St. Vincent de Van Nuys, although she’s yet to officially sign on.

The movie is about a cantankerous old man (Bill Murray) who forms a bond with the 12-year-old son of a single mother (the role McCarthy is circling) who moves in next door. It seems likely McCarthy will agree, as she auditioned for the role rather than the offer coming out of the blue.

Theodore Melfi is making his directorial debut based on his own script, which was featured on The Black List of the best unproduced screenplays in 2011. The movie is being pitched as being in the same vein as Silver Linings Playbook and As Good As It Gets.

The writer-director commented, “The relationship transforms both the man and the boy and even though he teaches the kid everything about his decadent lifestyle, from fighting to drinking, gambling and how to cheat lie and steal. And the 12-year-old has such a pure soul that he only extracts the good from all this.”

Shooting should start this summer on a $13 million budget. It may be timing that’s the main issue over whether McCarthy does officially sign on, as she’s also due to shoot her directorial debut Tammy this summer, once the latest season of her TV show Mike & Molly comes to an end.

Melissa McCarthy really broke out with Bridesmaids, but she’s had to take her time capitalising on that due to the fact she has to spend a lot of her year making the sitcom Mike & Molly. Even so she’s added three new films to her slate, according to THR (which could suggests she’s hoping to leave Mike & Molly behind).

Two of the movie are set up at Universal while the third are set up over at Fox. The first has no title yet, but is based on a character McCarthy created called Michelle Darnell. She’ll also co-write the script with her hubby Ben Falcone and fellow Groundlings comedy group member Steve Mallory.

She’s also planning the family film Cousin Irv From Mars, adapted from an upcoming children’s book by New Yorker cartoonist and former Seinfeld writer Bruce Eric Kaplan. It’s about a boy and his cousin, who is from outer space. Kaplan will write the screenplay while McCarthy will star.

The final film is Just Do It, based on Douglas Brown’s Just Do It: How One Couple Turned Off the TV and Turned On their Sex Lives for 101 Days (No Excuses!). It could certainly make for a saucy film as the book is a memoir following a couple that attempted to rekindle their marriage with a 101 day sexual marathon. McCarthy and Falcone are both set to work on the script, with McCarthy once more planning to star.

That’ll certainly keep her busy, especially as she’s also got the likes of Identity Thief and The Heat to promote in the next few months, with her comedy Tammy also due to shoot this year.

Universal Pictures has released two fun character posters for their upcoming comedy Identity Thief, the latest movie from Horrible Bosses director Seth Gordon. Jason Bateman stars as a man who discovers his identity has been stolen by a woman (Melissa McCarthy) in another part of the country.

Here’s the synopsis, ‘Unlimited funds have allowed Diana (Melissa McCarthy) to live it up on the outskirts of Miami, where the queen of retail buys whatever strikes her fancy. There’s only one glitch: The ID she’s using to finance these sprees reads “Sandy Bigelow Patterson” … and it belongs to an accounts rep (Jason Bateman ) who lives halfway across the U.S.

‘With only one week to hunt down the con artist before his world implodes, the real Sandy Bigelow Patterson heads south to confront the woman with an all-access pass to his life. And as he attempts to bribe, coax and wrangle her the 2,000 miles to Denver, one easy target will discover just how tough it is to get your name back.’ The movie is due out March 1st, 2013.

Melissa McCarthy’s film career got a huge boost due to Bridesmaids, and while she has to spend much of the year making her (abysmal) sitcom Mike & Molly, Variety reports she’s hoping to slip in a small role in the comedy sequel The Hangover Part III.

A deal hasn’t been finalised yet, as scheduling issues need to be sorted out, although it is believed she will sign on in the near future. No details are known about her character. She’ll have to sort things out quickly though, as shooting on the movie started in Los Angeles and Las Vegas last week.

Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, and Justin Bartha are back as The Wolf Pack, with franchise favorites Mike Tyson, Ken Jeong, Mike Epps, and Heather Graham also returning. Todd Phillips is directing from a screenplay he co-wrote with Craig Mazin. It’ll be in cinemas next summer.