So we can cover as many films as possible, we thought we’d give you these quick updates on some of today’s smaller film announcements…
Former ER star Goran Visnijc has joined the cast of the indie drama Beginners. He’ll star alongside the previously announced Ewan McGregor, Melanie Laurent and Christopher Plummer. At the moment the plot is being kept a secret, although filming on the Mike Mills (Thumbsucker) movie is already underway in LA. (Source: Variety)
Amy Heckerling, whose past credit include Clueless, Fast Times At Ridgmont High and Look Who’s Talking, is working on a new rom-com called Vamps. The film will be about two young female vampires living the good life in New York until love comes along and each has to make a choice that will jeopardise their immortality. It seems no movie nowadays is complete without a vampire or two. Krysten Ritter is currently attached to play on of the female leads, with filming due to start next March. (Source: Screen International)
Vincent Cassel, Winona Ryder, and Barbara Hershey are said to be joining the cast of Darren Aronsky’s Black Swan, alongside Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis. The film is about a veteran ballerina (Portman) who finds herself locked in a competitive showdown with a rival dancer named Lilly (Kunis), although her rival may not be real. If the new cast additions are correct, Ryder will play Portman’s friend, Hershey will be her mother, while Cassel will be the director of the new ballet production. At the moment the new cast announcements come from unofficial sources. (Source: /Film)
Mamma Mia star Dominic Cooper has signed on to star in The Devil’s Double, with Ludivine Sagnier (The Beach) in talks to join him. The film is based on the true story of the body double for Saddam Hussein’s son, Uday. Latif Yahia was forced against his will to stand in for Uday in dangerous situations, because they looked so similar, but despite being an unwilling participant, it did give him access to the darkest parts of Saddam’s regime. The film is due to start shooting in Malta in January. (Source: Screen International)
Katherine Fugate, creator of the TV series, Army Wives, has been hired to write an adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s novel, What Alice Forgot, about a woman who suffers a head injury and concequently completely forgets the past decade of her life. The book is yet to be published in the US, but has been a success in Australia. It sounds like a juicy role, and we can imagine a lot of actresses lining up for it. (Source: THR)
Roger Donaldson (The Bank Job), has signed on to direct Honor Among Men, about a runaway slave from New York who makes his way to the Australian gold fields in 1854 and finds himself entangled in a rebellion by the gold miners against the British army. Based on a true story, Donaldson will make the movie after he finishes the Nicolas Cage film Hungry Rabbit Jumps, which has just started shooting. (Source: Variety)
Ray Winstone has joined the cast of the serial killer thriller, Red Snow, playing an ex-SAS officer tracking down his missing daughter in the forests of a remote town in northern Canada. The low budget movie is due to start filming next April, under the direction of former stuntman, Stuart St. Paul. (Source: THR)
Lewis Colick (October Sky, Ladder 49) has been hired to write the adaptation of the novel Three Little Words, which director James Mangold is developing. The film will be based on Ashley Rhodes-Courter 2008 memoir about her traumatic childhood in foster care, and will follow themes that Mangold first explored in Girl, Interrupted. (Source: Variety)
Brazilian drector Heitor Dhalia will make the English-langues spy thriller, April 23. Based on the book, Sadness at Leaving: An Espionage Romance, the film will tell the true story of a deep-cover KGB assassin sent to Manhattan amid the tumult of the 1960s, with the mission of acquiring all the attributes of an American life until the time he is called upon to assassinate a defector, However by that time he has a wife and family, and must choose between them and loyalty to his home nation. (Source: Variety)