Mary Elizabeth Winstead joins indie comedy “A.C.O.D.”

March 1, 2012 | Posted by Linda Ge in Casting Leave a comment

Mary Elizabeth Winstead has joined Adam Scott, Richard Jenkins and “Glee” star Jane Lynch in the cast of indie comedy “A.C.O.D.”, according to Deadline. Scott plays Carter, an A.C.O.D. (Adult Child of Divorce), who’s been caught in the middle of his parents’ nasty divorce for over 20 years. When his brother gets engaged, the feud between the exes intensifies and things spiral out of control. Jenkins plays the dad, Lynch plays Scott’s psychiatrist and Winstead will be Lauren, his longtime girlfriend and “the rock in his increasingly chaotic life.” Stuart Zicherman and and Ben Karlin wrote the script, and Zicherman will direct.

Comedy is a bit of a new direction for Winstead, who is quite a veteran of the horror genre, having starred in the likes of “Final Destination 3″, “Black Christmas”, “The Thing”, and this summer, “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.” But critics are calling her performance in dark Sundance comedy “Smashed” her best performance ever, and she also recently completed a role in Roman Coppola’s totally absurd sounding “A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III”, starring Charlie Sheen and loosely based on the volatile actor’s real life antics. She is also set to return to her favorite genre in horror flick “The Darkness.”

It’s Mary Elizabeth Winstead vs “The Darkness” in new ghostly thriller

February 8, 2012 | Posted by Linda Ge in Casting 1 Comment

One of our favorite up and comers – and one of our Face to Watch in 2012 – will take on ghosts for her next project. Variety reports Mary Elizabeth Winstead has committed to starring in psychological thriller “The Darkness”, which sounds like a mix between “The Others” and “Take Shelter.” Winstead will play an American student who looks after her tutor’s two young children in a sprawling and probably really creepy English manor, who begins to believe they are being haunted as mysterious events begin to threaten. Megan Holley wrote the script and German director Daniel Stamm will be behind the camera.

Winstead is certainly no stranger to horror, ghosts and supernatural events, having starred in such scary, gory fare as “Final Destination 3″, “Black Christmas”, “The Thing”, and this summer, “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.” She took a turn for the more grounded and realistic in what some critics are calling her best performance in recent Sundance relationship drama “Smashed”, in which she plays one half of an alcoholic couple opposite “Breaking Bad” star Aaron Paul and recent Oscar nominee Octavia Spencer. She has also completed work on “A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III”, Roman Coppola’s film starring Charlie Sheen and loosely based on the volatile actor’s real life antics.

Warner Bros loves Joel Edgerton, offers him both “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” and “300: Battle of Artemisia”

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

Hollywood absolutely loves Aussie breakout star Joel Edgerton (I concur, Hollywood). Universal was the first major studio to offer him several of their projects, and now Warner Bros is jumping on the Team Edgerton train. Vulture reports the studio has offered him two starring roles in two big budget, high profile projects: Russian secret agent Illya Kuryakin in “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” and Themosticles, the lead of “300: Battle of Artemisia”, a sequel/prequel to 2006′s “300″ that starred Gerard Butler.

Vulture believes Edgerton is likely to accept at least one of the offers after having trouble finding commercial success with “The Thing” prequel and “Warrior.” His casting in “Man from U.N.C.L.E.” could affect Bradley Cooper’s involvement, as the actor is still waiting to see who takes the Kuryakin role before officially committing to playing Napoleon Solo. The comedic buddy-cop style film will be something new for Edgerton, who’s been shades of serious and brooding in his previous films. If he accepts “300: Battle of Artemisia”, he’ll play Themosticles, the “famed archon and general who led the Greeks to victory against the invading Persians in 480 BCE.”

Edgerton caught Hollywood’s attention when he starred in 2010 Australian crime drama “Animal Kingdom”, and his career has been on an exponentially upward swinging trajectory since. After almost landing the lead of Bourne spinoff series “The Bourne Legacy”, Edgerton took a decidedly different role instead, as a Navy SEAL in Kathryn Bigelow’s next feature, tentatively titled “Kill Bin Laden.” He was last seen on screen opposite Tom Hardy in critically acclaimed but commercially challenged MMA family drama “Warrior” and is currently down under filming the role of Tom Buchanan for Baz Luhrmann’s “The Great Gatsby.”

Mary Elizabeth Winstead takes “A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III”

October 28, 2011 | Posted by Linda Ge in Casting 2 Comments

Mary Elizabeth Winstead is the latest promising actor inexplicably signing on to star opposite public trainwreck Charlie Sheen in the semi-autobiographical “A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III”, according to Variety. Also joining the growing ensemble cast are Bill Murray and Patricia Arquette, now rounding out a cast that already includes Jason Schwartzman, Aubrey Plaza and Katheryn Winnick.

Roman Coppola directs Sheen as the title character, a graphic designer whose abundant wealth and charm have made him irresistible to women. When his girlfriend breaks up with him, however, he inevitably begins to downward spiral and eventually go on a hallucination-filled journey of self-reflection and redemption. Ok, sure, but is this just a thinly disguised propaganda film attempting to rehabilitate Sheen’s image? Of course the filmmakers will deny, deny, deny, but if Charlie “Swan” turns out to be an overly sympathetic character, we’ll have our answer. Filming is already underway in Los Angeles.

Winstead recently headlined the remake of “The Thing” to not much success, but remains one of our favorites and has more promising projects on the horizon. She has wrapped playing Mary Todd opposite Benjamin Walker in next summer’s “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” and also indie dramedy “Smashed” opposite Aaron Paul.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Aaron Paul and Octavia Spencer get “Smashed” in new indie dramedy

September 20, 2011 | Posted by Linda Ge in Casting Leave a comment

Mary Elizabeth Winstead and “Breaking Bad” actor Aaron Paul have landed the leads in new indie dramedy, “Smashed”, according to Variety. In addition, “The Help” breakout star Octavia Spencer and Nick Offerman of “Parks and Recreations” fame are also joining the cast in supporting roles.

James Ponsoldt directs from a script he co-wrote with Susan Burke and which is a loose modern retelling of 1962 film “Days of Wine and Roses.” Winstead and Paul play a couple whose relationship is heavily based on their mutual appreciation of drinking alcohol. Their marriage is put to the test when the wife decides to get sober and joins AA. Spencer will play Winstead’s sponsor/friend while Offerman will be the assistant principal at the elementary school where Paul’s character works. Production is slated to begin in November.

Winstead, who broke out in a big way after playing dream girl Ramona Flowers in Edgar Wright’s geektastic summer blockbuster alternative “Scott Pilgrim vs the World” last year, will next be seen opposite Joel Edgerton in “The Thing” and recently wrapped up the female lead opposite Benjamin Walker in next year’s “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.” Paul, a recent Emmy winner for his role on AMC’s “Breaking Bad”, also starred on HBO’s “Big Love” and was seen in horror remake “The Last House on the Left.” Spencer, who has been toiling in supporting roles since 1996, landed the role of a lifetime when longtime friend Tate Taylor cast her as scene-stealing maid Minny Jackson in “The Help”, a character that, as it turns out, was partly inspired by Spencer herself, after Taylor introduced her to author Kathryn Stockett, who he grew up with in Mississippi.

Watch: Freaky alien shenanigans happening behind Mary Elizabeth Winstead in “The Thing” red band trailer

September 19, 2011 | Posted by Linda Ge in Videos Leave a comment

Mary Elizabeth Winstead gets snuck up from behind on by weird slimy alien creatures at least three times in the new red band trailer for “The Thing”, prequel to the John Carpenter horror classic of the same name from 1982. The group of alien attack victims in that film begin their journey by discovering the remains of a scientific camp that had been destroyed with no survivors, and the new film will tell the story of that camp’s unfortunate inhabitants. Winstead leads the way as American scientist Kate Lloyd brought in to join a team of Norwegian scientists who have made a gruesome discovery, with Joel Edgerton as a pilot who ferries supplies back and forth but has no idea what the scientists are actually up to. Neither character were mentioned in the original film so it goes to reason the ending may not be quite as spoiled as one would think.

The new “Thing” hits theaters on October 4th.

Watch: first clip of prequel to John Carpenter’s “The Thing” entitled … “The Thing”

September 9, 2011 | Posted by Rebecca Lewis in Videos Leave a comment

Getting ready for a Halloween-friendly release date of October 14th, here’s our first stand-alone clip of The Thing starring Joel Edgerton and Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

Only one trailer and one poster have been released so far for this anticipated prequel to the 1982 John Carpenter flick. In that film, we were never told what exactly happened to the Norwegian scientists that Kurt Russell and his crew discovered at the beginning. This new film, directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr, seeks to answer those questions, with a storyline mysterious enough to create a whole new horror story for this decade.

And certainly this short clip suggests a chilling horror film, as it shows Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje investigating a ice coffin. As he wipes away a layer of frost, a fellow crew member plays a practical joke … and then the really scary stuff starts. Watch it below.

Watch: Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Joel Edgerton bring “The Thing” to life in first trailer

July 14, 2011 | Posted by Linda Ge in Videos Leave a comment

In 1982, John Carpeter unleashed an extraterritorial creature with the ability to assimilate its victims and easily hide among unsuspecting prey in his cult classic “The Thing” and in 2011, a new team of filmmakers sets out to tell the story of how the Thing was fatefully and tragically brought to life by a band of Norwegian scientists. Mary Elizabeth Winstead leads as Kate Lloyd, an American scientist not mentioned in the first film, who is flown in to see the discovery the Norwegians made. She is wary and reluctant to take a tissue sample from the mysterious creature the group discovers frozen in ice and obviously had good reason to be paranoid, as that simple scientific action inevitably leads to the team’s downfall. Hopefully no spoiler alerts are needed here, as the 1982 film opens with a new team of researchers discovering the destroyed camp left behind by the Norwegians in the aftermath of their fatal mistake.

Joel Edgerton is also on board as a pilot running supplies to the camp but who is left in the dark regarding what sort of research is happening inside. The inclusion of these new American characters certainly leaves the door open for an ending that doesn’t leave every person dead on the ground. Anyone else getting an image of Edgerton, Winstead and a few stragglers taking off in a helicopter only for one of them to begin transforming? Find out if I’m psychic when “The Thing” releases in theaters on October 14th.

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