Catching you up on casting news and notes from the last few days . . .
-Keira Knightley has scored the female lead opposite Chris Pine in the newest Jack Ryan movie, directed by Kenneth Branaugh. The movie will be called . . . Jack Ryan.
-Justin Theroux will direct Will Ferrell and Steve Carell in Swear to God. Little is know about the film other than it centers on a narcissistic hedge fund manager (Ferrell) who thinks he has seen God.
-Rosemund Pike (Die Another Die) will join Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in Edgar Wright‘s sci-fi comedy The World’s End. How does this not sound awesome: five childhood friends going through an epic pub crawl in order to reach the fabled pub, The World’s End.
-According to Variety, Heather Graham will reprise her role as Jade for The Hangover III. Graham returns along with Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms, Mike Epps, Mike Tyson and Ken Jeong. The film will take the Wolf Pack L.A., Vegas, and Tijuana. 
The Hangover III will hit theaters May 24, 2013.
-David Duchovny on a third X-Files film: I would love to do another film, or more. I think we’re all game for it. I know I’m kind of perplexed that Fox isn’t more [enthusiastic]. Here’s a homegrown property that you don’t have to go buy, like fuckin’ Green Lantern or something, to make it. Here you’ve got an actual action franchise that’s your own. It’s weird to me, but I’m not an executive. I don’t know if they made the Green Lantern either, but I’m just using that as an example of, “Why make that film? Why not make a homegrown franchise that is excellent, and that has proven to be excellent and interesting?” I don’t get it, but that’s not my business.
-Nic Pizzolatto (The Killing) has been tapped to write The Magnificent Seven remake with Tom Cruise as the star. The plan is to cast six big names in addition to Cruise (picture Ocean’s 11 in the wild west).
-Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters starring Jeremy Renner (The Avengers), Gemma Arterton (Clash of Titans), will be rated R. According to Collider, the studio was testing PG-13 and R versions before making the decision. I hope it does it has better luck than Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. The story takes place 15 years after the Grimm’s Fairy Tale siblings’ incident at the gingerbread house.
-Variety reporting Sean Penn is in talks to direct Crazy For The Storm for Warner Bros. The film is an adaptation of Norman Ollestad’s memoir. At only 11 years old, Ollestad was the only survivor of a plane crash that killed his father.Penn’s last directorial effort was the decent Into The Wild.
-A found footage film based around the events of the The Amityville Horror has been given the green-light. Not a complete surprise considering there is an audience out there who apparently can’t get enough of those movies.
-Shia LaBeouf will star in Lars von Trier’s new erotic drama titled Nymphomaniac. The story “follows the erotic adventures of a woman (Gainsbourg) from her youth to age 50, as recounted to her husband (Skarsgard).”
-And finally . . . Guillermo del Toro gives an update on the Haunted Mansion film no one is asking for . . .
“I delivered my last draft five weeks ago. I have a meeting with them in three weeks. I know they like the screenplay. I need to meet with them in three weeks. That’s what I know. I know their reaction to the draft was good. We have a bunch of conceptualist art, but you never know, to predict anything else is hard for me to know.”
Sources :
Variety
Deadline
Collider
