Here’s the latest casting news coming out of Hollywood and Cannes…
Soul singer Mary J Blige is turning actress by landing the lead role in Ealing’s movie biopic of Nina Simone, simply titled Nina. The film will focus on Simone’s relationship later in her life with with her assistant, Clifton Henderson, played by David Oyelowo.With a script by Brave One writer Cynthia Mort, the movie will start shooting in September. (Source: Variety)
Diane Kruger (National Treasure) has signed up to topline the Afghanistan-set kidnap drama, Special Forces. She will play a French journalist who gets kidnapped by the Taliban. Djimon Housou, Denis Menochet, Benoit Magimel, Raphael Personnnaz will also start, which Stephane Rybojad will direct. (Source: Variety)
The sellers at Cannes are trying to get interest in a project called Flypaper, which will be directed by Rob Minkoff (Stuart Little, Forbidden Kingdom), and star Patrick Dempsey. Although it’s an independent movie, it comes from a script by Hangover scribes Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, and tell the tale of a bank that is robbed by two sets of criminals at the same time, causing Dempsey to come to the rescue, in order to save the bank teller he loves. (Source: Variety)
Although Samuel L. Jackson likes to say a lot of things, in a new interview he has claimed that “The Avengers should start shooting some time next year, and then some time after that therell be a big S.H.I.E.L.D. movie.” Whether there really will be a S.H.I.E.L.D movie is another matter, as Jackson is known getting a bit over-excited with his pronouncements, but it’s a definite possibility, and will probably depend on how well audiences take to the increasing presence of Nick Fury’s organisation in The Avengers. (Source: RadioBigBoy)
Matthew McCounaughey and Eva Mendes have signed up for the $20 million crime thriller Line Of Fire, while Tommy Lee Jones is in talks to join the story of a law enforcement officer who crosses the line for what he believes to be a noble cause. His actions lead to his familys abduction, forcing the officer to take on the mafia and his colleagues in order to save his family. Jonathan Jakubowicz will direct, with shooting planned for this autumn. (Source: Screen International)
Lauren German, Milo Ventimiglia, Michael Biehn, Rosanna Arquette, Ashton Holmes, Courtney B. Vance, Ivan Gonzalez, Michael Eklund and Abbey Thickson have been confirmed for Xavier Gens’ (Hitman) new movie, The Divide (previously known as The Fallout). Scripted by Karl Mueller and Eron Sheean, the suspense-driven apocalyptic action thriller focuses on a small set of divisive individuals all vying for the primal chance to survive. Filming has just begun on Canada. (Source: Screen International)
Keisha Castle-Hughes, Rachael Leigh Cook, Kristin Kreuk, Adelaide Celemn and Trevor Morgan have joined the previously announced Kevin Zegers, Amanda Plummer and Yu Aoi in Vampire, the English-language debut of Japanese director Iwai Shunji. Zegers plays a schoolteacher with a taste for human blood, who searches for suicidal young women as his victims; all of whom he falls in love with before their deaths. (Source: Screen International)