Will Diablo Cody's Sweet Valley High Dream Come True at Universal?

· Diablo Cody has never made much of a secret about her affection for the Sweet Valley High series of books. And it's a good thing, because this totally would have blown her cover: The screenwriter is set up to adapt Francine Pascal's mega-popular young-adult series at Universal, which is presently negotiating for rights to the 150-book collection. That's right: 150 books, which amounts to no fewer than 16,230 new catchphrases that Cody is on the hook for by the time the franchise is through. Wish her luck! [THR]

Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson are The Other Guys' other guys, Kurtzman/Orci play with the undead, and much more Hollywood Ink after the jump.

· The Will Ferrell/Mark Wahlberg comedy The Other Guys has signed up a pretty impressive second wave of talent, including Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson as the elite cops whose formidable law-enforcement chops are the envy of B-squadders Ferrell and Wahlberg. Steve Coogan, meanwhile, has signed on to play the film's villain. [Variety]

· As if they didn't have enough to do already, screenwriters-of-the-moment Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman may add the graphic novel adaptation Xombie to their Star Trek sequelizing/comedy producing to-do list. DreamWorks is hashing out the rights to the animated series-turned-comic book about a zombie cop who attempts to the "remnants of human culture" -- i.e. a little girl -- from a gaggle of evil zombies. I think I know who they mean. [THR]

· Not to be outdone, the scribes' Star Trek captain J.J. Abrams is piling a half-hour series on to his desk. His Bad Robot shingle is in talks with Fox to produce an untitled "medical comedy" written by Mike Markowitz, whose other current IMDB credit in development, Boob Job ("A married man's life is unexpectedly changed for the worse by his wife's boob job"), may or may not fit that description. Assuming they're separate, let us pray Abrams leaves Markowitz to his masterpiece before dragging him to Scrubs Lite. [Variety]

· Dennis Hopper, Scott Caan, Tricia Helfer and J.K. Simmons will be starring in the indie dark comedy A Beginner's Guide to Endings; apparently all received the news after another grueling day of police lineups (left), as pictured in The Hollywood Reporter. [THR]

· Lionsgate has acquired worldwide rights to the untitled next film by Traffic/Syriana writer Stephen Gaghan, about a disgraced deep-cover operative-turned- Brooklyn cop who finds his old enemies haunting his new stomping grounds. Surely there are another five Gaghanesque story threads missing in that description. Developing... [Variety]