Fox wants to find the funny in saving money.

Scribes Lisa Addario and Joe Syracuse (pictured) have been hired to write the screenplay for an untitled family event movie based on journalist W. Hodding Carter’s various writings about his drastic real-life efforts to scale down his family’s spending. The studio is aiming to hit the zeitgeist of an America wracked by economic woes and weighed down by its debt-carrying lifestyle.

Double Feature Films’ Stacey Sher and Michael Shamberg originally brought the project to Fox and are producing. Exec Lauren Levy is overseeing the comedy for the studio.

A journalist and author, Carter realized his family of six was living far beyond its means in rural Rockport, Maine, and decided they should try to live on $550 per month after mortgage payments. Among their new domestic policies are farming their front yard, raising chickens, eating roadkill, forgoing vacations and meals out, making their own birthday gifts, plugging trees for maple syrup, reusing coffee filters and bartering with neighbors.

In movie terms, this means they eventually become “project rich” rather than financially rich, and, thus, much happier.

Fox has released the first trailer for its fall release "Love & Other Drugs," starring Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal.

Writer-director Ed Zwick is back in the romantic comedy zone for the first time since "About Last Night ...," which was released 24 years ago. And without taking away from films such as "The Siege," "Defiance" and "Glory," it seems clear that this is the genre in which he does his most natural work -- something he's relegated to his television series ("thirtysomething," "Once and Again") since 1986.

Andy Fickman is negotiating to direct the Fox/Walden Media comedy “Us & Them,” written by married scribes Joe Syracuse and Lisa Addario.

Billy Crystal, who is attached to star and produce, had been developing the project with Syracuse and Addario (“Surf’s Up”) at Paramount for several years. Just before Adam Goodman was promoted to president of Paramount Film Group, about-to-be-outgoing topper John Lesher let “Us & Them” go from active development.

Crystal and the writers quickly set it up with co-president of production Emma Watts at Fox, where former News Corp. president and COO Peter Chernin is now producing through his Chernin Entertainment. Walden is co-producing and co-financing the pic.

“Great World of Sound” co-writer/director Craig Zobel has become attached to direct the comedy “The Litigator” at Fox.

The script, written by Mike Arnold and Chris Poole, centers on a slacker attorney working for his uncle’s prestigious law firm who finds himself in over his head when he’s asked to defend a man wrongfully accused of murder.

Michael Aguilar of Dos Tontos and Mark O’Connor are producing the project, which Arnold and Poole had originally set up at Fox Atomic as part of a blind script deal a few years ago. When Atomic was shuttered in April 2009, exec Debbie Liebling took “Litigator” to Fox proper, where new exec Lauren Levy is now overseeing its development.

Arnold and Poole are currently reworking the screenplay.

As the trailer for his new animated movie “Rango” sprang onto the web today, director Gore Verbinski entered negotiations with Fox to helm the studio’s long-in-development adaptation of “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.”

I broke the story in April that “The Pursuit of Happyness” screenwriter Steven Conrad had been hired by Fox to take on the screenplay. Conrad's script must be strong enough for the studio to push forward. And Verbinski, who is repped by CAA, has strong momentum coming out of the three "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies and "The Ring," which together grossed $2.9 billion worldwide.

Samuel Goldwyn Jr. and John Goldwyn are producing the new "Mitty" project, which derives from James Thurber’s classic 1939 short story. "Mitty" has, like "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" before it, passed through the hands of many writers, actors and directors piqued by the story's inventive possibilities.

Thurber's story, which has been filmed before, centers on a man who escapes his unexciting daily life by delving into elaborate daydreams in which he is suddenly a heroic character. That Johnny Depp has now starred for Verbinski four times (including the March release of "Rango") raises the intriguing possibility that he could step into Mitty's flighty shoes. Fox is likely salivating at the prospect.

Additional reporting by Borys Kit

Fox put out a trailer for its comedy "Gulliver's Travels," starring Jack Black. This seems like a slam-dunk premise for Black's obnoxious flavor of comedy, since the plot puts him in the position of towering over an entire island of tiny people. But, boy, does this thing take a while to get going, and once it does there's not a whole lot of laughs. Only one visual gag of putting the Lilliputians on a foosball table sparks a chuckle. Fox better hope the 3D and some hidden fart jokes save the day, because Jack Black merely saying the word "mutton chops" may not cut it. What do you think?

John McClane’s string of bad luck may not yet be over. “Hitman” screenwriter Skip Woods is in negotiations with Fox to take a crack at a new “Die Hard” script. The New York cop known for consistently being in the wrong place at the right time has already survived four run-ins with terrorists, traitors and psychotic loose cannons of one stripe or another. In his last outing, “Live Free or Die Hard,” written by Mark Bomback and directed by Len Wiseman in 2007, McClane battled Web terrorists to $378 million in worldwide grosses -- 20 years after first pitching Hans Gruber out a broken window at Fox towers. So the studio justifiably sees another installment as a strong bet. There’s no word yet on the new project’s story line, but former Fox exec Alex Young (“Unstoppable”) is producing. The CAA-repped Woods has already co-written several tentpole projects for Fox, including “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and the forthcoming TV adaptation “The A-Team.” He also wrote the original screenplay for “Swordfish.” McClane himself, the CAA-repped Bruce Willis, has several projects moving toward release -- Sylvester’s Stallone’s “The Expendables” and the Summit actioner “Red” -- and then a late-summer production start on the Lionsgate video game adaptation “Kane & Lynch.” After that, he’s free again to dig out the stubble, filthy T-shirt and beleaguered wisecracks.

Walter Mitty has a new storyteller. “The Pursuit of Happyness” screenwriter Steven Conrad has been hired by Fox to take on the screenplay for the studio’s long-gestating feature version of “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” Conrad’s deal was for seven figures. Samuel Goldwyn Jr. and John Goldwyn are producing. The project, which derives from James Thurber’s classic 1939 short story, centers on a man who escapes his unexciting daily life by delving into elaborate daydreams in which he is suddenly a heroic character. Sacha Baron Cohen has recently been flirting with the title role, to which Mike Myers was long attached.

Fresh off directing “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” for Fox, Oliver Stone is in talks to helm “Travis McGee” for the studio. Leonardo DiCaprio is attached to star as the lit-based title character. McGee is the shaggy hero of 21 detective novels written by John D. MacDonald and could provide fodder for another Fox franchise. The movie will be based on the first book in the series, “The Deep Blue Good-by,” published in 1964. The novel tracks the Florida-based “salvage consultant” as he reluctantly leaves his houseboat to go in search of a treasure hidden by a soldier after World War II.

The first "Knight and Day" trailer, out in December, was impressive for its unique structure -- Cameron Diaz retelling the movie's mysterious first act as the trailer's action catches up to her in real time. Pretty cool. And the footage was fun and action-oriented enough to showcase Tom Cruise in a way we haven't really seen before: comic action star. Fox has just put out a new full-length trailer, and all I can say is -- BAM! This thing is hot, fast, with cool action, both stars in bathing suits, foreign locales, explosions, a minimum of silly banter... basically it looks like a very cool summer movie from 15-20 years ago but with all the toys and slickness of 2010. Did I mention Diaz in a hot red bikini? There's also a cool new poster that gives the film a paperback novel feel, with the stars in silhouette and a pulpy splash of paint behind them. You have to hand it to Fox. They may have managed to create a killer marketing campaign AND make a good film.

Fox is getting “Big” again. The studio has purchased a pitch from writers Adam Cole-Kelly & Sam Pitman called “Premature Maturation” that puts an ensemble spin on the concept behind the hit Tom Hanks comedy from 1988. Though the project is sure to get a new title, it follows a group of kids who suddenly find themselves grown up. Former NewsCorp president Peter Chernin is producing through his Chernin Entertainment. Fox exec John Fox is overseeing for the studio. Repped by WME and Management 360, Cole-Kelly and Pitman also have their project “The Misadventures of Fluffy” in development at Paramount with Eddie Murphy producing. Chernin has the projects “Animal Rescue,” “Man and Wife” and an untitled “Daredevil” reboot in development at Fox.

Quick quiz: Watch these two trailers -- of upcoming summer action comedies with similar set-ups -- and see if you can determine which one has actual actors/movie stars and a talented director: