Here’s the latest casting news coming out of Hollywood…
There’s been much talk in Hollywood that following the lacklustre box office for Knight & Day, Paramount has been retooling Mission: Impossible IV, to make it cheaper and less reliant on the Cruise factor. The suggestion is that they want to beef up the role of a fellow operative, partly so that they have someone ready and waiting if they decide to continue the franchise without Cruise, and partly so it’s less like The Tom Cruise Show, now that his box office clout has slipped. For the last few weeks they’ve been busily searching for that co-star, looking at the likes of Tom Hardy, Chris Pine, Kevin Zegers, Christopher Egan and Anthony Mackie, but after a lot of uncertainty over who they would pick, it appears the man who’s got the job is Hurt Locker star Jeremy Renner. He should certainly be a good match for Cruise. M:I IV is set to hit cinemas December 2011. (Source: Deadline)
Vamps, the movie that reunites Alicia Silverstone with Clueless director Amy Heckerling, is currently shooting in Michigan, and while it already had a pretty good cast including Sigourney Weaver, Krysten Ritter, Justin Kirk and Wallace Shawn, we can now add Malcolm McDowell and Marilu Henner to the mix. The movie is about two freewheeling female vampires (Ritter and Silverstone) who are living the New York highlife, until love comes along and make them rethink their immortality. Henner will play a dying woman who gets the chance to resurrect her sexy self, while McDowell will be Vlad The Impaler, who’s now living a quiet life in NYC. (Source: Coming Soon)
Maria Bello and Stephen Dorff have signed up to star in the indie thriller, Carjacked. Written by Sherry and Michael Compton, the film is about a single mother and child who are carjacked by a bank robber who has no intention of letting them go. Peter Medak (Romeo Is Bleeding, Species II) will direct, with shooting set to commence next month. (Source; Variety)