• Looks like Noomi Rapace has been initiated into official American stardom. Not only will she star opposite Jeremy Renner (Hurt Locker & The Town) in the re-imagining of Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, but she scored the lead in the Sherlock Holmes sequel. A role she turned down, however, was the new recruit in Mission Impossible 4—fortunately for Paul Patton (Deja Vu), who was ultimately cast. Also joining Tom Cruise's new team, playing the resident wise-cracker I'm sure, is Josh Holloway ("Lost"). As for the villain, it's rumored that Rapace isn't the only one getting famous off the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo hype machine. Her co-star Michael Nyqvist (right) will play the charming, calculating villain who engages in a brutal fight with Ethan Hunt in the end. And playing Moriarity, the main villain in Sherlock Holmes 2, will be the dashing, penny-pinching gent Jared Harris (left), who has been charming us on "Mad Men" for the last two seasons.
• Everybody's super-hyped that Zack Snyder has finally been chosen as the new Superman director. But I 1) wonder if he can erase the memory of Watchmen bombing, 2) am surprisingly not too keen on Christopher Nolan producing and adding his dark Batman vibe to it—I like my Clark Kent bumbling, not brooding—and 3) would rather hear the news of who's been cast as Superman. It's too bad Jon Hamm is 10 years too old.
• OMG! Will Smith might be the president in the Independence Day sequel. Of course.
• Speaking of Sir Holmes, Robert Downey Jr. is interested in starring in The $40,000 Man, it's a recession-friendly version of "The Six Million Dollar Man," where a legendary astronaut is rebuilt by the government after a horrible accident. The catch is that they don't use the most hi-tech equipment. Think JVC instead of Sony.
• I'm a little worried about Steven Spielberg. First Indiana Jones 4 bombs, then he spends years working on Tintin (?), and now he's doing Robopocalypse, a sci-fi action film that sounds exactly like The Terminator. He can't possibly be running out of money. Right?
• Angelina Jolie is set to make her directorial debut. She's chosen Zana Marjanovic (Snow) to star in a drama about "a Bosnian woman who is in love with a Serbian man amidst the war."
• When I first heard that Mickey Rourke was doing the film Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer, I thought it sounded incredibly stupid. Then I heard Michael Shannon ("Boardwalk Empire"), Benicio Del Toro, and James Franco have been cast, so now I'm in. Yes, I'm that easy. The film is "based on the true story of Richard "The Ice Man" Kuklinski, a man who for more than 40 years led a double life as both a professional assassin and a doting husband and father in suburban New Jersey." *shaking head* Seriously, who buys Mickey Rourke as a suburban family man? Granted, it's New Jersey, but still. No matter how he's dressed or groomed, he always looks like an escape prisoner from Riker's Island.
• I'm so glad Emma Stone beat out Hilary Duff to play Gwen Stacy in Spiderman (Mary Jane is taking a backseat in this version). I don't have anything against Hilary Duff. I've loved her since Casper Meets Wendy, but she's no superhero girlfriend. She just doesn't have enough spunk. Stone is also rumored to be up for the female lead in the "21 Jump Street" film adaptation. I wonder if her former Superbad co-star Jonah Hill is the one who suggested her?
• Ridley Scott is looking to direct a two-part prequel to the Aliens saga. Normally, that wouldn't be newsworthy. Aliens is awesome. When it shows up in theaters, you watch it, whether the original cast is in it or not, and whether the plot makes sense or not. But this time the plot intrigues me. Scott says it might run along the lines of: "Were the aliens designed as a form of biological warfare? Or biology that would go in and clean up a planet?" Now that's interesting. Can you imagine an "Alien" being the next step up from a nuclear warhead? And if it was a planet-cleanup technique, are we the ones who send it as like a vicious version of Wall-E, or did something else send it before they land and commandeer our planet? So many possibilities. Rumored to be starring in the prequels are Noomi Rapace, Carey Mulligan (Wall Street 2), or Gemma Arterton (Clash of the Titans). I'm not even going to comment on the hilarity of Mulligan trying to fill Sigourney Weaver's shoes.
• Why did I just know after hearing that the Battleship board game movie was in production that Liam Neeson would get cast? After starring in A-Team, he was bound to get a truckload of army-related roles thrown at him. He's just so convincing as a leader in war. In Battleship, he'll play a navy admiral, father of Brooklyn Decker, and Taylor Kitsch's future father-in-law. Alexander Skarsgaard ("True Blood") is playing Kitsch's brother and Rihanna will play a weapons analyst...hopefully one without a Caribbean accent.
• Will Ferrell is really putting himself out there. He's teaming up with Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal for a Spanish-language comedy called Casa de mi padre (House of My Father). In the dramatic telenovela-style story, he'll play Luna's brother, and Bernal will be a friend of the family.
• Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds are teaming up for the body-switching film The Change-Up. Reynolds takes over Bateman's family life and Bateman takes over Reynolds' responsiblity-less slacker lifestyle. Olivia Wilde plays the person who causes the body-switch and Leslie Mann, veteran body-switching actress, will play Bateman's wife. I'm assuming they're both supposed to have a revelation at the end of this, Freaky Friday-style. Bateman will probably learn to appreciate his family and Reynolds will probably realize what he's missing out on. Despite its predictability, it's always great to see these two make fools of themselves. P.S. Who do you think is getting the better deal on that bodyswitch? *wink wink*
• The plot of The Hangover 2 will be about the guys going to Thailand and Ed Helms' character waking up after having had sex with a local transsexual prostitute, and trying to figure out what happened.
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