By trying to bring in some top-notch directing talent! Also today: a new movie about butter finds its cast, more new shows from the Syfy channel, Paula Abdul has been located and is receiving care, and Muppets.

Cutesy star Jennifer Garner has signed on to produce and star in the film Butter, the natural third in the trilogy begun by Milk and continuing with the upcoming Salt. The film is about competitive butter carvers, and is meant to be a metaphor for Hillary Clinton battling with Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential primary. The screenplay is a Black List script and is thus attracting attention from other potential costars like Kate Hudson and Jim Carrey. I hope this means my script Sour Cream, about aging porn stars, will finally get sold. [Variety]

Attention nerds with a taste for the quirky. (So Torchwood fans, basically.) The network Syfy, named after a strange outerspace STD, is developing a new show called Three Inches, about your genitals, bango! a team of less-than-super superheroes. The lead character can move things with his mind, but only three inches. So look for lots of convenient setups where something important only needs to be moved three inches. ("Every week there's a canal." "Or an inlet." "Or a fjord.") [THR]

There was some breathless rumoring yesterday that America's greatest natural resource, Paula Abdul, would be hosting a new version of Star Search for ABC. The world rejoiced! Paula was quoted as saying "If the ham salad is here today, it'll be here tomorrow. It was terrific." Everyone nodded their heads and just awkwardly cheered some more! But now Sharon Waxman is coming, as always, to rain on our parade. The Wrap says it's not a done deal, and that the possibility of Abdul joining Dancing with the Stars as a judge instead is still in play. There's also the possibility that she'd reteam with Simon Cowell on The X Factor on Fox, but who the hell knows. All we do know is that Paula will have a career saying things about things that other people have just done. And lemme tell ya, that's not a bad gig. [TheWrap]

Though whispered about for some time already, it's finally been made official: Jason Segel, an avid Muppets fan, will be starring in their new movie, which he cowrote. It concerns a human man, Segel, who goes on a journey to reunite the Muppets, who have scattered with the four winds into drinking problems and creepy sugar daddy relationships in the seedier outskirts of Los Angeles. I made that last part up, but stranger things have happened. [THR]

Oh for the love of... Talented directors Bill Condon, Sofia Coppolla, and freaking Gus van Sant have all been contacted by Summit Entertainment about possibly directing the last of the two Twilight films (based on the final book, Breaking Dawn, split into two parts, like Harry Potter book seven). If Gus van Sant directs a Twilight movie... Well, I'd be hoping for more Gerry than, say, Finding Forrester. Just weird that shit up, Gus. But, also, don't take the job. Those movies really don't need artistic validation like that. I'm pretty sure Chris Columbus is available. Just get him. [EW]

Speaking of vampires! Good old True Blood, in some ways television's most ridiculous show, will be returning to the airwaves on June 13th. Which is only three short months away. June is in three months. It's going to be in the 60s tomorrow. I think we beat winter once again, guys. [THR]