Here’s the latest casting new coming out of Hollywood…
Patrick Dempsey, who’s had a rather variable movie success rate while trying to capitalise on his Grey’s Anatomy fame, has signed up for a new film, Tom’s Dad, which will be directed by Lasse Halstrom (Dear John, The Cider House Rules). The fairly predictably plot has Dempsey as a vaudeville star who finds that his style of comedy is going out of fashion in the early 1960s. Into that comes a young son, who he hasn’t seen in years, presumably with the usual emotional reconnection, finding a new direction in life and coming out the other side as a better person. (Source: Variety)
The Mentalist’s Simon Baker and Legion star Paul Bettany are in negotiations to join the idie drama Margin Call. Writer/director J.C. Chandor’s film is set over a 24-hour period at a prominent investment bank as the staff deal with the storm that accompanied the early stages of the financial crisis. Baker will portray a ruthless, high-powered securities broker who oversees characters played by Kevin Spacey, Stanley Tucci and Zachary Quinto and drives his colleagues to win by any means necessary. Bettany will play a top-tier trader, who is unabashedly unafraid even as the crisis deepens. The movie starts shooting next week. (Source: THR)
The cast of The Double continues to grow, with the news that Martin Sheen will join Richard Gere, Topher Grace, Stephen Moyer, Stana Katic, and Odette Yustman in the film. The Double is about a retired CIA operative (Gere), who’s forced to reluctantly team up with a cocky young upstart (Grace), in order to hunt down the killer of a senator in Washington. Sheen will play the director of the CIA in first time director Michael Brandt’s movie, which starts shooting on Monday. (Source: THR)
Canadian actor Michael Hogan, best known as badass Colonel Tigh in Battlestar Galactica, has signed on to appear in Catherine Hardwicke’s The Girl With the Red Riding Hood, which starts filming next month. Although there’s little new on the role he’ll play, the film itself is set in a medieval village that’s being threatened by a werewolf. The story follows a young girl (Amanda Seyfried) who is engaged to be married (to Max Irons) but falls for an orphaned woodcutter (Shiloh Fernandez), much to her family’s displeasure. Julie Christie and Gary Oldman will also star. (Source: The Wrap)