Great news breaking tonight for fans of two very excellent TV shows. First comes word that "Friday Night Lights" star Kyle Chandler (Coach Taylor!) will be joining Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill in Martin Scorsese's "The Wolf Of Wall Street." Based on the memoir by Jordan Belfort and his experiences on the job in the '80s and '90s, and adapted by Terence Winter ("Boardwalk Empire"), "The Wolf of Wall Street" tells the rise and fall of a drug/sex/alcohol-addicted New York stockbroker. DiCaprio is in the lead and Hill will play his best friend, who works in the furniture business, and is convinced by Belfort to join in the wild world of stocks. According to Deadline, Chandler will play FBI agent Coleman who is responsible for taking down DiCaprio's character. Since winning the Emmy for Best Actor duing the final season of 'Lights,' Chandler has been attaching himself to a series of interesting projects starting with last summer's J.J. Abrams hit "Super 8," continuing with Ben Affleck's "Argo" this fall and "Broken City" alongside Russell Crowe and Mark Wahlberg, likely arriving next year.
Perhaps ironically, Chandler's harshest competition for the Emmy may have been actor Jon Hamm who has been continuing to kill it on "Mad Men" this season, so perhaps there's still hope for him. Hamm has also been keeping busy with the excellent fifth season of his 4 time Emmy-winning show as well as appearances on "30 Rock" and pretty much everywhere online (bowling with the Nerdist podcast crew, rapping about the '70s sitcom "Taxi" with Reggie Watts, giving advice to teen girls for Rookie Magazine). According to Deadline he's also lined up his next big screen appearance in the sports drama "Million Dollar Arm" for Disney. The movie is based on the true story of how sports agent J.B. Bernstein discovered professional pitchers through a reality show he staged in India with cricket players. Hamm will play the burnt out agent who hatches the titular reality show and then must teach them about American culture, baseball and how to speak English.
Tom McCarthy, the writer/director responsible for "The Station Agent," "The Visitor" and "Win Win" is taking on scripting duties. Though so far McCarthy has directed all of his screenplays (except for "Up" which he has a story credit on) he does not appear to be directing this one. This is the first indication that Disney is going back to doing mid-sized projects instead of their ill-conceived plan to focus exclusively on tentpoles they can squeeze in between their DreamWorks/Marvel/Pixar releases. And it's a good sign that they're already shaking the dust off the Dick Cook era.