The Newsies is a regular feature that sees The Dissolve cheerfully adding to the awards glut by handing out imaginary awards related to the day’s movie news. 

Arms Dude Of The Day: Miles Teller
Miles Teller has joined Jonah Hill in Todd Phillips’ Arms And The Dudes. For just a minute, let’s live in a world where we don’t know what this movie’s about, and imagine it is about Miles Tellers’ detached and reanimated arms conducting a clone army made up of thousands of Jeff Bridges from The Big Lebowski. Okay, now I’ll tell you the real thing. It’s based on a Rolling Stone article by Guy Lawson that followed “two unlikely arms dealers who secured a $300 million contract to supply weapons for U.S. allies in Afghanistan. They soon found themselves in danger abroad and in trouble back home because they were completely out of their depth.” Teller will star as David Packouz, a massage therapist who, in what’s now a natural career progression, becomes an international arms dealer alongside Hill’s Efraim Diveroli. Hm. Will this be a buddy comedy a la Superbad, a dark thriller a la Breaking Bad, or a wonderful Michael Jackson video a la Bad?

Tween Dad Of The Day: Eric Bana in Knights Of The Round Table
Eric Bana has signed on to play the father of King Arthur in Guy Ritchie’s Knights Of The Round Table. His character’s name is Uther, because King Arthur’s family is lazy about names. In other fun facts, Eric Bana is only 12 years older than his on-screen son, Charlie Hunnam. Plot details are unknown as of now, but the story is probably along the lines of, “12-year-old Eric Bana deals with the repercussions of being a tween father and then, later, a 46-year-old father to a 34-year-old man.” Astrid Berges-Frisbey, which is a much more creative name, is playing Guinevere, and Jude Law may play the villain. 

War, What Is It Good For? Movies! Of The Day: Billy Bob and Alfred Molina cast in Tina Fey’s untitled war comedy
Billy Bob Thornton and Alfred Molina, whose name I keep reading as “Angelina Jolie” (#bloodvials4eva), have joined Tina Fey, Margot Robbie, and Martin Freeman in the untitled comedy from Fey, based on Kim Barker’s memoir The Taliban Shuffle. Production on the movie is already underway in New Mexico. Lorne Michaels is producing, and Miles Teller and Jonah Hill are supplying all weaponry. 

More War Stuff Of The Day: Keri Russell and Mahershala Ali cast in The Free State Of Jones
Keri Russell of Keri Russell fame and Mahershala Ali of House Of Cards fame have joined Matthew McConaughey of teeth-whistling fame and Gugu Mbatha-Raw of Beyond The Lights fame in Gary Ross’ Civil War movie The Free State Of Jones. The historical epic will tell the true story of “defiant Southern farmer Newt Knight [McConaughey, playing the exact type of person he would be if he weren’t famous and lived during the 1800s] and his extraordinary armed rebellion against the Confederacy during the Civil War.” Russell will play McConaughey’s wife, Serena Knight, and Ali will play Moses Washington, an escaped slave who joins the rebellion. If there’s anything to take away from today’s Newsies, it’s that war is great and if you participate in it in any capacity you will be memorialized on the silver screen. 

Wearing The Pants Again Of The Day: Blake Lively, Amber Tamblyn, Alexis Bledel, and America Ferrera
Way back in 2005, Blake Lively, Amber Tamblyn, and Alexis Bledel, and America Ferrera all starred in a little war comedy called The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants. They played best friends who, despite varying body types, were all able to fit into the same pair of jeans while fighting alongside Newt Knight. I’m still not totally sure what those jeans were a metaphor for, or if the books were just a cautionary tale about what happens when you let your friends borrow your clothes. (Namely, they have ill-advised sex in them.) In real life, the stars became best friends, too: Amber, Alexis, and America are Blake’s daughter’s godmothers, and they all get together all the time to talk about the Nuremberg trials. This is all a long-winded way of informing you that America appeared on the Meredith Vieira show this week and said that there’s a script in the works for a third Pants movie.