Thursday, August 9

• Casting newz: Walken, Hurt, Defiance, and Eagle Eye

  Variety is reporting several casting deals today.

  Christopher Walken and Alessandro Nivola (Junebug, Face/Off) will be teaming up in Five Dollars a Day, a road movie in which Walken plays a conman and Nivola the son who's been jailed for his crimes. Nigel Cole (Calendar Girls, A Lot Like Love) will direct...

  ...Liev Schreiber (The Painted Veil, Kate & Leopold) and Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot, King Kong) will be joining Daniel Craig in Defiance, the Edward Zwick (Blood Diamond) written and directed drama about Polish brothers who join the Russian resistance during the Holocaust...

  ...Director D.J. Caruso will be re-teaming with Shia LaBeouf after their blockbuster turn in Disturbia for another thriller, Eagle Eye. Michelle Monaghan (Mission: Impossible III, North Country) has just been cast opposite Shia as a single mother who must infiltrate a cell plotting a political assassination after they are wrongly accused of being terrorists. MTV.com recently reported that Rosario Dawson has also signed onto the movie...

  ...MTV is also reporting that William Hurt has a juicy role coming up in a new Julie Delpy drama/romance. The Countess, which Delpy wrote and will star in and direct, is about Elizabeth Bathory, a Hungarian countess who lived during the 16th century and also happened to be a serial killer. Radha Mitchell (Melinda and Melinda, Finding Neverland) and Vincent Gallo (The Brown Bunny, Buffalo 66) are also confirmed. 

  
  

  Posted 08/09/2007 by Heather

  Alessandro Nivola | Christopher Walken | Liev Schreiber | Michelle Monaghan | Rosario Dawson | William Hurt | Nigel Cole | D.J. Caruso | Radha Mitchell | Vincent Gallo | Jamie Bell | Shia LaBeouf | Julie Delpy | Five Dollars a Day | Defiance | Eagle Eye | The Countess

Tuesday, August 7

• Movie newz: Appaloosa and He's Just Not That Into You

  Renee Zellweger has signed on to star in Appaloosa, a Western drama that will be directed by Ed Harris (A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13). The movie is about "a pair of friends hired to protect a lawless town suffering at the hands of a renegade rancher," says Variety.com.

  Harris, who will also be starring in the movie, adapted the script with Robert Knott (with whom he worked in Pollock) from the 2006 novel by Robert B. Parker. Harris will also be re-uniting with his A History of Violence co-star Viggo Mortensen, who also toplines the film which will start filming in New Mexico in October.

  And according to The Hollywood Reporter, Jennifer Connelly (Blood Diamond), Kevin Connolly (Entourage), Bradley Cooper (Wedding Crashers), Justin Long (Live Free or Die Hard) and Ginnifer Goodwin (Big Love) are all close to closing casting deals in Ken Kwapis's (License to Wed) film adaptation of He's Just Not That Into You.

  As we reported in June, Drew Barrymore will be producing and starring in the movie, based on the book by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo.

  And finally, MTV.com is reporting that actress Rosario Dawson (Grindhouse, Sin City 2) won't be in Kevin Smith's Zack and Miri Make a Porno after all. Although Smith wrote the role of Miri with Dawson in mind, it appears she is too busy with her other projects (most notably Eagle Eye, which will be directed by D.J. Caruso) to fit it into her schedule. We wonder if Smith will delay shootnig Zack and Miri to get his muse? 

  
  

  Posted 08/07/2007 by Heather

  Bradley Cooper | Ed Harris | Jennifer Connelly | Justin Long | Kevin Smith | Rosario Dawson | Ken Kwapis | Renee Zellweger | Kevin Connolly | Viggo Mortensen | Ginnifer Goodwin | Appaloosa | He's Just Not That Into You | Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Friday, July 20

• What's coming up for Kevin Smith? Horror and porn.

  Kevin Smith has two new projects in the hopper, both of which sound quite interesting.

  The first, a comedy called Zack and Miri Make a Porno, is about two Minnesota friends who decide to start up an amateur porn studio as their high school reunion looms.

  Although no casting is definite yet, Smith told MTV.com that he wrote the role of Miri for Rosario Dawson and would be "flabbergasted" if she didn't do it. Jason Mewes will likely be in it as well, although not as his View Askew character Jay.

  The next project, Red State, is less traditional Smith fare. The writer/director describes it in the horror/thriller vein (he actually said it was more like The Shining than Hostel), with a character inspired by Fred Phelps--the uber conservative right-wing Christian minister who claims that AIDS is a scourge sent by God to punish homosexuals. Sounds scary to us.

  Smith expects to shoot both Red State and Zack and Miri this winter.

  
  

  Posted 07/20/2007 by Heather

  Jason Mewes | Kevin Smith | Rosario Dawson | Zack and Miri Make a Porno | Red State