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Industry Roundup: Steve Carell Penning Post Office Comedy

The Post-Office: NBC has purchased a half-hour, single-camera comedy from departing Office star Steve Carell. The series, which Carell will write and executive produce, is based on the actor’s early days working as a mail carrier in Littleton, Massachusetts. It’s tentatively titled The Post-Graduate Project, and it centers on a small-town post office frequented by “a quirky but tight-knit group” of local twentysomethings. [Deadline]

Busy Week: Michael Urie has been cast in the TBS pilot Brain Trust, a detective comedy about a disgraced cop who turns to three “hyper-smart geniuses” from a think tank to help him solve cases. Urie is one of the geniuses, and D.B. Sweeney plays the detective. [PopWatch/EW]

Period Crime: Zombieland’s Ruben Fleischer is in negotiations with Warner Bros. to direct Gangster Squad, the forties crime drama “regarded as one of the hotter scripts in the studio’s arsenal.” The film tells the true, Untouchables-like story of elite Los Angeles officers who fought organized-crime kingpins like Mickey Cohen. [Deadline]

High School Crime: Channing Tatum is joining Jonah Hill in 21 Jump Street. Tatum will also join Hill as an executive producer on the project, which will be directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. Jump Street was a hit TV show way back when, and featured a group of young-looking cops who infiltrated high schools as students in order to stop crime. [HR]

More Muppets: Ricky Gervais and Emily Blunt have signed on for cameos in James Bobin’s new Muppets movie. The duo are joining a lineup that includes Alan Arkin, Jack Black, Billy Crystal, Zach Galifianakis, and Jean-Claude Van Damme, all of whom will appear in the film in which the Muppets reunite to put on a show in order to save their movie studio from a developer. [HR]

Night Guards: Ben Foster will star alongside Mark Wahlberg and Kate Beckinsale in Baltasar Kormakur’s Contraband, the English-language remake of the 2008 Icelandic film. Wahlberg plays a former smuggler trying to go straight as a night guard. Foster plays the night guard’s best friend and right-hand man who helps him take on a last dangerous job. [Deadline]

Industry Roundup: Steve Carell Penning Post Office Comedy