Deadline is reporting Rachel Weisz is in “deep talks” for a role in The Bourne Legacy opposite Jeremy Renner whose carrying on the franchise as a new character: an operative from a covert government program that is even more dangerous than the Treadstone brainwashing program that hatched Bourne. The film is slated for a August 3, 2012 release under the direction of Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton).
Weisz is also in talks to star in Oz: The Great And Powerful for Sam Raimi at Disney and there is no word yet on whether she can film both.
New casting for The Hunger Games squashes earlier rumors that John C. Reilly would play Haymitch, the only District 12 tribute to ever survive the Hunger Games, as The Hollywood Reporter announces Woody Harrelson has secured the role.
Ethan Hawke has joined the cast of Len Wiseman’s Total Recall remake in an unspecified cameo role. Hawke joins Colin Farrell, Bryan Cranston, Kate Beckinsale and Bokeem Woodbine. Jessica Biel is still considered the frontrunner to land the second female role with filming set to begin next month in Toronto for an August 3, 2012 release.
Ian McKellen has revealed on blog that Hugo Weaving will be returning to Middle Earth as Lord Elrond in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit.
Screen Daily reports Aaron Eckhart, AnnaSophia Robb and Sean Bean have signed on to star in the as-yet untitled “dark” Peter Pan project (working title is Pan) set up at New Line. Ben Hibon, the man who directed the impressive animated sequence in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, will direct. Robb will play Wendy, Eckhart is attached as Hook and Bean is attached as Smee. In this adaptation of the story, the Captain Hook character is reimagined as a tormented former detective on the trail of a childlike kidnapper. Pre sales are kicking off here in Cannes with shooting expected to start in October.
Apparently Men in Black III isn’t done shooting yet (I thought it was) as The Daily Mail (via Coming Soon) has posted some snaps from the New York set as well as brings news that “Bill Hader could be spotted on set dressed as the legendary 60s icon Andy Warhol.”
James Wan’s Insidious was a big, low budget hit earlier this year and now his next film, Spectre, has Nicole Kidman in talks to star as the project (plot still unknown) makes its way to Cannes in search for a buyer.
I won’t be seeing The Artist until this Sunday here at Cannes, but the film has already secured a domestic distributor as The Weinstein Co. has picked it up making it the first big deal of the Cannes Film Festival. The Artist is a silent film directed by Michel Hazanavicius and starring John Goodman, Missi Pyle, James Cromwell and Penelope Ann Miller. Here’s the synopsis and you can browse a few pics from the film in my gallery here:
Hollywood 1927. Georges Valentin is a silent movie star who seems blessed : he is handsome, athletic and an excellent dancer. The arrival of the talkies causes Georges to fall into oblivion, alcohol and poverty. As for the young extra Peppy Miller, her star shoots to the heavens.
Speaking of Cannes deals, a new film announced by Hannibal Classics here at Cannes is Sleight of Hand, starring Kiefer Sutherland, Gerard Depardieu, Til Schweiger, Thomas Jane, Johnny Hallyday, Jon Lovitz and Eric Cantona and directed by Brad Mirman. Here’s the synopsis:
In Sleight of Hand, also starring French actors Jean Luc Couchard, Nora Arnezeder and Patrice Cols, the international cast plays a crew of small time crooks in Paris, who inadvertently end up possessing a rare gold coin belonging to a notorious French gangster. The leader of the crew calls his uncle (Depardieu), a retired criminal, to help them raise the money to repay the gangster. The series of mix-ups and double crosses culminate as the gangs are pit face to face, chasing through Paris
Yet more Cannes deals being made include The Last Photograph, the Afghanistan-set war drama starring Sean Penn and Christian Bale for director Niels Arden Oplev (the Swedish The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo). Joel Silver’s Dark Castle and Europe’s StudioCanal will co-finance the project in which Penn would play an ex-special ops soldier who arrives in Afghanistan to seek vengeance for the murder of his brother’s family. He enlists a war photographer (Bale), the sole survivor of the attack that killed his brother, who captured the event in a photo.
