Ansel Elgort Is Augustus Waters in "The Fault in Our Stars" Opposite Shailene Woodley

From siblings to star-crossed lovers! EW reports rising star Ansel Elgort has been offered the male lead in "The Fault in Our Stars" opposite Shailene Woodley - who plays his sister in the currently-filming dystopian adaptation "Divergent." The two Read more

Dylan O'Brien Lands "The Maze Runner" Lead; Ki Hong Lee Also Joins

UPDATE: Director Wes Ball tweets that Ki Hong Lee has also joined the cast as Minho, a fellow Glader and ally to Thomas throughout the series. Lee is probably best known as a regular on short-lived ABC Family Read more

Shailene Woodley Confirmed for "The Fault in Our Stars"

I mean, duh, we called it. It has now been officially confirmed with glowing quotes from director, producer and author in tow that the increasingly in demand Shailene Woodley will play the lead role of Hazel Grace Lancaster Read more

Up and Comers Presents: 20 Faces to Watch in 2013

After a somewhat unpredictable year in which the stars we expected to break out largely didn't but fresh faces came out of nowhere to surprise us all, we are ready to look ahead to the new talent waiting to Read more

Up and Comers Presents: The Breakout Stars of 2012

Another year, another new crop of fresh talent. Just like last year, the hardest part is narrowing down which of the dozens of the year's rising stars shone the brightest. This year we heralded the arrival of the unlikeliest Read more
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red dawn

“The Hunger Games” star Josh Hutcherson joins Benicio Del Toro in Pablo Escobar Drama “Paradise Lost”

December 17, 2012 | Posted by Linda Ge in Casting Leave a comment

Peeta Mellark, meet Pablo Escobar. Deadline reports that “The Hunger Games” star Josh Hutcherson is in negotiations to join Benicio Del Toro in a movie about the famous Colombian drug lord, marking the young actor’s first film since joining the lucrative teen franchise.

“Paradise Lost”, not to be confused with the aborted Alex Proyas biblical epic that had been working under the same name, follows Hutcherson’s young Irish surfer as he visits his older brother in Colombia. There, he falls for a girl and then meets her uncle, Del Toro’s Escobar.

Filming under the direction of Andrea di Stefano will begin in March, after Hutcherson wraps up “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.” Unlike his co-stars who’ve all leveraged their newfound fame for bigger and better roles, Hutcherson has laid low since hitting the jackpot in the worldwide phenomenon “The Hunger Games”, and has only committed to a second sequel to the “Journey to the Center of the Earth” franchise, which he first starred in pre-”Games.” He was seen earlier this year in the “Red Dawn” remake, which was also first filmed pre-”Games.” He’ll next lend his voice to animated family film “Epic.”

Ryan Gosling and Rooney Mara join Terrence Malick’s “Lawless”; Isabel Lucas in for “Knight of Cups”

November 1, 2011 | Posted by Linda Ge in Casting 2 Comments

It looks like Terrence Malick is making up for lost time in a big way, after having only directed five films in the past four decades. With “The Tree of Life” recently out, Malick will have up to four projects at various stages of production and release in 2012. Announced today via press release from the American Film Market, Cate Blanchett, Ryan Gosling and Rooney Mara have joined Christian Bale and Haley Bennett in “Lawless”, while Aussie up and comer Isabel Lucas has signed on for “Knight of Cups”, which will also co-star Bale and Blanchett.

“Lawless” is that thing Malick, Bale and Bennett were filming at the Austin City Lights Music Festival, though apparently, all of that was pre-production and rehearsal and will probably not end up in the final film. No plot details exist for either project (shocker!) though the press release confirms it’s actually Gosling, not Bale, who is the lead on “Lawless”, while Bale headlines “Knight of Cups.” And while we originally thought Bennett had beaten out Mara for the female lead and that “Lawless” would feature only one pair of leads – one male, one female – that now appears to be in question as well. Both films are in pre-production and will shoot in 2012 back-to-back. On top of this duo, Malick has already completed an untitled romance starring Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams (aka “The Burial”) that is awaiting release and a long-gestating documentary “Voyage of Time” that’s still in the development stages.

“Lawless” will mark Mara’s first project since landing the role of a lifetime in David Fincher’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” over a year ago, while Gosling is on something of a hot streak with high profile projects, recently wrapping Derek Cianfrance’s “The Place Beyond the Pines”, currently filming “Gangster Squad” for Ruben Fleischer and gearing up to shoot a remake of “Logan’s Run.” Lucas can be seen as Athena in Tarsem Singh’s “Immortals”, releasing on November 11th, and has the remake of “Red Dawn” still patiently waiting for a release date.

“Thor” star Chris Hemsworth leads black ops thriller “Shadow Runner”

June 29, 2011 | Posted by Linda Ge in Casting 1 Comment

Joel Edgerton, Taylor Kitsch and now Chris Hemsworth. We are still in the midst of a hot Hollywood fad, it appears, in the wake of the killing of Osama Bin Laden. THR reports the “Thor” star will follow in the footsteps of Edgerton and Kitsch in headlining an action thriller set in the Middle East, revolving around elite teams of special ops soldiers. “Shadow Runner” – unlike fact-based “Kill Bin Laden”, starring Edgerton for director Kathryn Bigelow and “Lone Survivor”, led by Kitsch and director Peter Berg – will be a fictional tale which will see Hemsworth as the head of a large troop of special ops commandos, tasked with carrying out dangerous and seemingly impossible missions. What those missions will entail is being kept under wraps.

Screenwriter Hossein Amini, who is currently re-writing “Snow White and the Huntsman”, which also stars Hemsworth, came up with the idea and is loosely inspired from an incident wherein a 17-person Israeli assassination team carried out a mission, killing a Hamas leader in a five-star hotel in Dubai. The film, however, will not recreate those events.

Hemsworth, who had a breakout moment starring as Captain Kirk’s father in JJ Abrams’ 2009 “Star Trek” reboot, really made audiences (and the industry) sit up and pay attention when he easily headlined comic book blockbuster “Thor” last month. He is currently reprising his role as the Norse God / superhero in Joss Whedon’s all-star team up “The Avengers”, where Hemsworth’s Thor will fight crime side by side with Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man, Chris Evans’ Captain America, Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk, Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow and Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye. Hemsworth also has horror “The Cabin in the Woods” and a remake of “Red Dawn” awaiting release.

First Cast Photo: ‘Red Dawn’

January 4, 2011 | Posted by Tamara Manne in Images Leave a comment

Here is the first cast photo from Red Dawn. Cast includes: Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Josh Hutcherson (RV), Adrianne Palicki (Friday Night Lights), Isabel Lucas (Daybreakers), Josh Peck (Drillbit Taylor), Edwin Hodge, Jeffery Dean Morgan (The Losers), Alyssa Diaz, and Connor Cruise.

While the title remains the same, some significant changes to the film have been made, including setting and two additional characters among the “Wolverines” (a title the group of tough teenagers have taken on). In the 1984 version, starring Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen, the “Wolverines” defended their town from Russian invaders. In the remake, the threat comes from China — a script change that met early controversy. The Daily Blam reports that the film drew “sharp criticism from one of the leading Chinese state-run newspapers; which ran headlines such as ‘U.S. reshoots Cold War movie to demonize China’ and ‘American movie plants hostile seeds against China’.”

How will 2011′s Red Dawn stack up to the original, a film that found itself in the 2007 Guinness Book of World Records for most violent film ever made?