Jim Spellman/WireImage.comAnother Saturday Night Live star is ready for prime time.
Amy Poehler is in talks to topline NBC's hugely anticipated spinoff of The Office, per the Hollywood Reporter.
The untitled show, whose plot is a big secret, is the brainchild of The Office's executive producer and principal writer, Greg Daniels, and is being targeted to debut in the 9:30 p.m. slot after the other Dunder Mifflin drones.
Poehler, 36, is apparently willing give up her Weekend Update anchor chair to costar with Aziz Ansari, who was the first actor to be tapped for the program last month. Rashida Jones has also been connected to the show, presumably appearing as her old Office self, Karen Filippelli.
Meanwhile, as originally reported last week by E! Online's Watch With Kristin, FX has confirmed Michael J. Fox is heading back to the tube.
The 47-year-old thesp, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, is set to guest star in a four-episode arc on FX's Rescue Me, his first TV gig since a brief turn on ABC's Boston Legal back in 2006.
Fox will begin his run on the premiere of the acclaimed drama's fifth season in spring 2009, playing the wheelchair-bound boyfriend of Janet (Andrea Roth), estranged wife of Rescue Me's problem-plagued lead character, New York City firefighter Tommy Gavin (Denis Leary). No word on an exact airdate.
Here's a brief rundown of today's other top casting news:
- Tom Hanks, Jack Nicholson, Julia Roberts and Bruce Willis are among the A-listers tapped to perform a staged reading of The World of Nick Adams, based on the stories by Ernest Hemingway, to beneft the Painted Turtle, a camp and care center for critically ill children and their families. The performance, taking place Oct. 27 at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, will also include music by Aaron Copland performed by the San Francisco Symphony.
- Danny DeVito is set to direct Morgan Freeman, Pierce Brosnan and Saoirse Ronan in the children's tale The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. Set in the 1830s, Ronan will play the title character, a brave teenager caught up in a mutiny against a ship's captain (Brosnan) during a voyage from England to the U.S. Freeman will play a protective cook. DeVito also penned the screenplay for the film, which starts filming in September
- Robin Williams has come aboard World's Greatest Dad, playing a single father and, in a nod to his Oscar-nominated role in Dead Poet's Society, a high school poetry teacher. The dad fakes a suicide note on behalf of his son, who accidentally kills himself during an autoerotic act. Bobcat Goldthwait wrote and is directing the indie feature, which just started shooting
- Marcia Gay Harden has signed on to FX's Damages as a second-season regular, ready to trade barbs with Glenn Close. Ted Danson will also be back for several episodes.
- Now that ABC's Desperate Housewives is jumping forward in time by five years, producers have recast the Scavo kids. Joshua Moore will play eldest son Parker, while Charles and Max Carver will take on twins Porter and Preston, respectively. Kendall Applegate will play Penny, the youngest spawn of Tom and Lynette Scavo (Doug Savant and Felicity Huffman)
- Former October Road star Jonathan Murphy is joining the cast of ABC's new midseason replacement Life on Mars, as Detective Chris Skelton, something of a nervous nellie at the department who works alongside Jason O'Mara's detective character after the latter travels back in time to 1973.
- Funnylady Jennifer Coolidge, perhaps best known as Stifler's mom in the American Pie movies, will guest star on an upcoming episode of TNT's The Closer, playing a not-so-smart wife of a wealthy car dealer who gets caught in an undercover sting. The episode airs Aug. 11.