Anna Friel has signed on to star with Will Ferrell in the light-hearted comedy Land of the Lost.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Universal’s Peter Cramer and Eric Baiers are overseeing the project with Brad Silberling directing.

Friel - who stars in the adorable ABC series Pushing Daisies - will play the love interest of Ferrell, a disgraced paleontologist who finds himself in a strange prehistoric world.

Earlier this week, ComingSoon.net got a chance to talk to Will Ferrell about Universal’s upcoming Land of the Lost. Based on Sid & Marty Krofft’s 1970s TV series of the same name.

The movie revolves around a disgraced paleontologist, his assistant and a macho tour guide who find themselves in a strange world inhabited by dinosaurs, monkey people and reptilian Sleestaks.

We’d buy tickets already if we could.

“It’s going to be kind of on the tone of The English Patient, but with horribly frightening realistic dinosaurs. In fact, we only survive for 12 minutes of the film. It’s going to be more like a nature documentary,” Ferrell joked.

On a more serious note, the actor said the movie is “going to be kind of hopefully Jurrasic Park in terms of the quality. It’s not going to be so much a spoof. It’s going to be as real as possible and hopefully funny.”

The flick will be released in July, 2009.