Will Ferrell is 'The Yank'; Johnny Knoxille Takes 'Sick Day'; Michael Ealy is 'The Perfect Guy'

* Will Ferrell is circling a starring role in The Yank, a fish-out-of-water comedy written by Steve Pink (Hot Tub Time Machine) and Jeff Morris. TriStar has picked up the pitch about an insurance agent who gets caught up in a scheme to steal the Crown Jewels from England.  Ferrell has been plenty busy this year, already starring in the (unfunny) miniseries The Spoils of Babylon and voicing the villain in The Lego Movie. He'll be seen next opposite Kevin Hart in Get Hard.

* Johnny Knoxville is about to take a Sick Day for director Jeremy Garelick (The Break-Up). The head Jackass is attached to star in the film originally penned by Garelick and rewritten by Jordan Cahan, which follows three friends "who uphold a tradition of calling in sick one day a year to fulfill fantasies while not getting caught." Ferris Bueller called and he wants his plot back. [Deadline]

* There are a lot of ladies who see Michael Ealy as The Perfect Guy, and apparently so does director Sylvain White. Ealy, along with Sanaa Lathan and Morris Chestnut, have been offered roles in the steamy revenge thriller about a woman who enters into a sexually-charged relationship with the "perfect guy", only for his violent and obsessive side to emerge later on when she tries to call it off. The script was written by former U.S. prosecutor Barbara Curry, and the project is housed over at Screen Gems who have worked with Ealy on About Last Night, Takers, and Think Like a Man.