Director Robert Rodriguez is busy filling out the cast of Machete Kills as he plans to start shooting soon and so needs to pull everything together at lightning speed. Now Variety reports that Amber Heard has signed on, while recent Oscar nominee Demián Bichir will be part of the movie too.

In the film, Danny Trejo reprises his title role from Machete, who is hired by the U.S. government to stop a nefarious arms dealer (Mel Gibson) from firing a missile. Amber Heard will play an assassin named Miss San Antonio. No details are known about Demián Bichir’s role. Michelle Rodriguez and Jessica Alba also star.

Robert Rodriguez is directing from his own original screenplay, with shooting scheduled to take place in Austin, Texas, which is the hometown of both the filmmaker and Amber Heard.

Hugh Hudson hasn’t made a fiction feature since 2000 with I Dreamed Of Africa, but with a re-release due for Chariots Of Fire and lots of interest in that movie due to the London Olympics, he’s decided it’s time to come out of semi-retirement for Midnight Sun.

The film is a family adventure film described as being in the vein of Free Willy and Dolphin Tale, set amongst the ice fields of Northern Canada. The hero is a young boy, Luke, who defies the dangerous elements of nature to reunite an abandoned polar bear cub with its mother. Luke is aided by Muktuk, a half Inuit and half Canadian, who knows the terrain where polar bears live like the back of his hand. But they are soon separated on the floating ice of the high Arctic, and Luke and the cub are left to protect themselves from bear attacks, giant icebergs, and vicious windstorms.

BAFTA and Emmy award-winning cinematographer Doug Allan will lens the wildlife and natural elements of the picture, with production design by Andrew Sanders (Chariots of Fire, The Last Temptation of Christ). The film will start shooting in November 2012, with locations in the Canadian Arctic and Manitoba.

Elijah Wood has had difficulty fully capitalising on the success he had with Lord Of The Rings, but he’s still around and has now signed on to star in the upcoming indie action-thriller Grand Piano for director Eugenio Mira.

The rather OTT plot centres on a concert pianist (Wood) who returns after a five-year break from performing. However, when he sits down at the piano, he sees a menacing note on his sheet music. He must give the performance of a lifetime or else a mysterious madman will kill him and his wife! The project was described as Speed at a piano.

Production will begin later this summer at Ciudad de la Luz Studios in Alicante, Spain, with another week of shooting scheduled to take place in Chicago. (Source: THR)

For someone who had no intention of being an actor at the time of District 9, Sharlto Copley has built quite a career for himself. A couple weeks ago we reported that he was in talks to play the villain in Spike Lee’s remake of Oldboy.

He’s now been confirmed to play that role and according to Deadline has also finalised a deal to star in Open Grave for director Gonzalo López-Gallego (Apollo 18).

In Oldboy, Copley will play the villainous Adrian Pryce, a billionaire who releases Joe Douchett (Josh Brolin) after keeping him in captivity for several years, and then has to deal with the man’s revenge. Elizabeth Olsen also stars as a case worker who helps Joe figure out his past.

Open Grave has been in development since 2006, with Gonzalo López-Gallego directing from a screenplay by Chris Borey and Eddie Borey. The movie centres on a man who wakes up surrounded by dead bodies and has no idea how he got there. He starts to have bizarre, murderous flashbacks, and begins to think the he is the killer.

It isn’t known when production will begin on either of these projects.

Actress Michelle Rodriguez is certainly going to be keeping fit this summer in sequels, as she’s signed deals to star in the high-octane madness of both The Fast and the Furious 6 and Machete Kills, according to Variety.

The actress made a cameo appearance as Letty during the end-credit scene in Fast Five, and she returns as a main cast member in this new installment. Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, and Dwayne Johnson are also confirmed for this sequel. Haywire star Gina Carano is also in talks to join the cast.

Michelle will also reprise her role as Luz from Machete in director Robert Rodriguez’s sequel. Danny Trejo is back as the title character, and we reported last week that Mel Gibson is in talks to portray the villain. Rodriguez start shooting Machete Kills later this month in Austin, Texas, and will move right to The Fast and the Furious 6, which begins production in Europe next month.

Both movies are set for release next summer.