Hey, what do you know? I have a rather exciting batch of casting updates for you today along with some Tom Cruise release date news and word on that long-in-waiting third film in the Robert Langdon series. Today’s casting includes names such as Rosario Dawson, Vincent Cassel, Jacki Weaver and Emma Stone and I don’t want to delay you any further… dig in.
Rosario Dawson and the previously said to have Scarlett Johansson, Zoe Saldana and Melanie Thierry circling the role.
The film is preparing to shoot this fall in London, after which Boyle will direct the opening ceremonies at the 2012 Olympics and cut the film together later that year for a March 2013 release through Fox Searchlight. [Deadline]
No surprise here, it seems whomever Emma Stone works with becomes infatuated with the actress as Will Gluck (Easy A) couldn’t help but insert her in the opening scenes of Friends with Benefits and now she is looking to reteam with her Zombieland helmer Ruben Fleischer in Gangster Squad. The casting will also reteam her with her Crazy, Stupid, Love co-star Ryan Gosling as she will play play Jean, a sharp-tongued siren caught in a love triangle with Gosling’s character and Sean Penn, who portrays mobster Mickey Cohen in the film based on the L.A. Times’ seven-part series “Tales From the Gangster Squad” penned by Paul Lieberman. Stone is the first female actor to join the cast. [Variety]
Oscar-nominated actress Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom) has joined the cast of Stoker for Chan-wook Park (Oldboy). Weaver joins Nicole Kidman, Matthew Goode and Mia Wasikowska in the story which tells of a girl (Wasikowska) and her mother (Kidman) who are visited by a mysterious uncle (Goode) after the girl’s father dies. The script was written by “Prison Break” actor Wentworth Miller under the pseudonym Ted Foulke. Fox Searchlight Pictures has already secured domestic distribution rights. [Deadline]
In release date news, Paramount has moved Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol from its December 16 release date to December 21. The move means it will no longer be up against Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows, The Iron Lady and Alvin and the Chipmunks – Chipwrecked! and will instead face off squarely with David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
And in other Tom Cruise movie news, Paramount will soon formalize a February 8, 2013 release date for One Shot, which is based on the Lee Child bestselling book series centering on Jack Reacher (Cruise), a former military policeman-turned-drifter. In “One Shot” Reacher investigates a case in which a lone sniper murders five victims before being captured. Reacher discovers it’s more than a simple open-and-shut case. One Shot will be directed by Christopher McQuarrie. The early year release date decision is said to be Paramount’s attempt to mimic the winter release pattern they followed for Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island, which resulted in over $128 million at the box-office. [Deadline]
Ron Howard is getting out of the Dan Brown business as he has reportedly directed his last Robert Langdon feature and will not return to direct The Lost Symbol, the sequel to The Da Vinci Code which starred Tom Hanks in the lead role. Howard last directed The Dilemma and has Under the Banner of Heaven based on Jon Krakauer’s novel as well as a live-action version of Mad magazine’s comic strip Spy vs. Spy set up at Warner Bros. Beyond that, there’s also the ambitious The Dark Tower series based on Stephen King’s seven novels waiting in the wings after Universal recently passed on the film and television crossover project. [Deadline]
