There’s a lot of breaking news in Hollywood happening every minute. In the age of the blockbuster, it’s easy for some smaller movie and television news to slip through the crack. Last Week in Hollywood is our new weekly series highlighting all the interesting news from the last week that we thought didn’t warrant its own post, but was still worth mentioning. It’s less personal opinions and more a hearty roundup of what you might have missed.
The Gray Man Adds Three More to Cast
The espionage thriller The Gray Man continues to build out an amazing cast. Regé-Jean Page, Billy Bob Thornton, and Alfre Woodard are the latest additions, joining a cast that will be headlined by Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, and Ana De Armas.
The action-thriller follows “CIA agent-turned-assassin Court Gentry (Gosling) as he’s hunted across the globe by Lloyd Hansen (Evans), a former cohort at the CIA.” Joe and Anthony Russo will direct from a rewritten script by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.
Pinocchio Adds Cynthia Erivo & More
TheWrap has exclusively reported that Cynthia Erivo, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Keegan-Michael Key, and Lorraine Bracco have all been cast in the upcoming live-action remake of Pinocchio for Disney. They join previously cast Tom Hanks (as Geppetto) and Luke Evans (as The Coachman).
Erivo will play the Blue Fairy, “a magical being who fulfills Geppetto’s wish and transforms Pinocchio into a real boy.” Ainsworth is voicing the title character of Pinocchio, with Gordon-Levitt as the voice of Jiminy Cricket, Key as the voice of Honest John, and Bracco as the voice of Sofia the Seagull, a new character.
Robert Zemeckis will direct the remake of Disney’s 1940 animated classic. Production is set to begin shortly in the U.K. The film will debut as a Disney+ Original Film. will begin production next month in the U.K. and will debut on Disney+. Andrew Miano and Weitz are producing through their company Depth of Field along with Zemeckis’s Imagemovers.
Hugh Grant, Sophia Lillis Join D&D
Hugh Grant and Sophia Lillis have joined the cast of Paramount and eOne’s Dungeons & Dragons adaptation. Grant will be playing Forge Fletcher, the film’s villain, and Lillis is playing someone named Doric. Character names have still not been provided for the rest of the cast, which includes Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Justice Smith and Rege-Jean Page.
Billy Eichner to Write & Star in Gay Rom-Com Bros
Billy Eichner is about to make history. The comedian will write and star in Bros, an upcoming romantic-comedy from Universal that is being touted as the “first major studio movie to star and be written by an openly gay man.” Eichner co-wrote the script with Nicholas Stoller (Neighbors), who will also direct.
Bros will hit theaters on August 12, 2022, The Wrap reports.
Melissa McCarthy Joins Thor: Love & Thunder
Melissa McCarthy is now part of the MCU! The acclaimed actress will play Fake Hela in a dramatic reinactment of Thor: Ragnarok at some point in Thor: Love & Thunder. Matt Damon, Luke Hemsworth, and Sam Neill will also be back to reprise their roles as Fake Loki, Fake Thor, and Fake Odin.
McCarthy’s husband Ben Falcone was also spotted on set, but it is unknown if he will have a role to play as well. Perhaps he will play the play’s director? I don’t know! But the scene in question that will be dramatically performed is when Odin dies and then Hela reappears and destroys Mjölnir.
The Little Mermaid Casts Jessica Alexander
Jessica Alexander (Get Even) has joined Disney’s upcoming live-action The Little Mermaid film. Her part in the film remains unknown. Alexander joins Halle Bailey, Melissa McCarthy, and Javier Bardem in the cast. Rob Marshall (Into the Woods, Mary Poppins Returns) is set to direct the remake with David Magee (Life of Pi, Mary Poppins Returns) penning the script.
Borderlands Adds Ariana Greenblatt as Tiny Tina
Ariana Greenblatt (Young Gamora in Avengers: Infinity War) has joined the cast of the Borderlands adaptation. She will play Tiny Tina, “a dangerous 13-year-old who is hellbent on revenge.” Greenblatt joins a cast that includes Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Jack Black.
Full Cast for Chucky TV Series Announced
Child’s Play franchise creator and writer Don Mancini has been developing a Chucky series over the past few years for Syfy. We actually got a teaser trailer for it back in July of 2020. We knew Brad Dourif was returning to voice the iconic killer doll, but now we know who he will be attacking.
Zackary Arthur (Transparent), Teo Briones (Ratched), Alyvia Alyn Lind (Daybreak), and Björgvin Arnarson (The Seventh Day) have been cast as series regulars and the four teen leads. Jennifer Tilly is also reprising her role as Tiffany Valentine from the movies, and Devon Sawa (Final Destination) has also signed up for an undisclosed role.
In Chucky, “after a vintage Chucky doll turns up at a suburban yard sale, an idyllic American town is thrown into chaos as a series of horrifying murders begin to expose the town’s hypocrisies and secrets. Meanwhile, the arrival of enemies — and allies — from Chucky’s past threatens to expose the truth behind the killings, as well as the demon doll’s untold origins as a seemingly ordinary child who somehow became this notorious monster.”
Ty Simpkins Boards The Whale
Ty Simpkins (Insidious, Iron Man 3) has boarded Darren Aronofsky’s forthcoming film The Whale at A24. He joins previously announced cast members Brendan Fraser, Hong Chau, Samantha Morton, and Sadie Sink. Simpkins will play someone named Thomas. No further details have been revealed about his character.
The Whale tells the story of “a reclusive English teacher suffering from severe obesity who attempts to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter for one last chance at redemption.”
Freeman & Pugh to Star in A Good Person
Morgan Freeman and Florence Pugh are set to star together in A Good Person. Zach Braff will direct.
The story follows Florence Pugh as “Allison, a young woman whose life falls apart following her involvement in a fatal accident. In the years that follow, she forms an unlikely kinship with her would-be father-in-law (Morgan Freeman), and he helps her live her life again.”
Kathy Bates Joins Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
Kathy Bates has joined Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, the upcoming adaptation of Judy Blume’s classic novel. She will play Margaret’s grandmother Sylvia. Abby Ryder Fortson and Rachel McAdams are playing Margaret and her mother. Kelly Fremon Craig adapted the screenplay and will direct the film, which begins production in April.
Indira Varma Heads to a Galaxy Far, Far Away
Indira Varma (Game of Thrones) has been added to the cast of Disney+ and Lucasfilm’s Obi-Wan Kenobi series. She joins Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen, who are both reprising their roles as Obi-Wan and Darth Vader from the prequel trilogy.
Christian Bale Reunites With Scott Cooper For New Film
After working together on Out of the Furnace and Hostiles, Christian Bale and Scott Cooper are set to reunite again for a film adaptation of Louis Bayard’s 2007 book The Pale Blue Eye. The book is a murder mystery about “a detective who is brought in to solve a baffling murder at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.” Also, Edgar Allan Poe is a character in the novel.
Deadline reports that Bale will produce and star in The Pale Blue Eye, which has Cooper on board to direct and write the script. Filming is set to begin sometime this fall.
George Clooney & Julia Roberts to Star in Rom-Com Together
George Clooney and Julia Roberts are heading back to their rom-com roots. The two actors will star together in Ticket to Paradise. The duo will reportedly play “a divorced couple that teams up and travels to Bali to stop their daughter from making the same mistake they think they made 25 years ago.”
Daniel Pipski co-wrote the script with Ol Parker (Mama Mia! Here We Go Again), who is also slated to direct.
The Time Traveler’s Wife Casts Its Leads
Rose Leslie and Theo James have been tapped as the leads in The Time Traveler’s Wife, a new adaptation of the novel by Audrey Niffenegger. The series is in development at HBO with Steven Moffat (Sherlock) set to adapt. The series will follow the same premise as the book and the film adaptation by focusing on the “intricate love story of Clare (Leslie) and Henry (James), and a marriage with a problem… time travel.”
Dave Bautista & Milla Jovovich to Star in George R.R. Martin Story
Milla Jovovich and Dave Bautista are set to star in a feature-length adaptation of George R.R. Martin‘s short story In the Lost Lands. Variety reports that Paul W.S. Anderson will direct the adaptation.
In the movie, “a queen, desperate to fulfill her love, makes a daring play: she hires the sorceress Gray Alys (Jovovich), a woman as feared as she is powerful. Sent to the ghostly wilderness of the Lost Lands, Alys and her guide, the drifter Boyce (Bautista), must outwit and outfight man and demon in this fable that explores the nature of good and evil, debt and fulfillment, love and loss.”
Zoe Kravitz to Team Up With Steven Soderbergh
Zoe Kravitz will star in director Steven Soderbergh‘s next film for HBO Max. David Koepp (Jurassic Park) penned the film.
Deadline reports that Kravitz is set to star in the New Line Max Original movie KIMI as “an agoraphobic tech worker who discovers recorded evidence of a violent crime during an ordinary data stream review and tries reporting it up the chain of command at her company. Meeting with resistance and bureaucracy, she realizes that in order to get involved, she will have to do the thing she fears the most — leave her apartment.”
Tina Fey and Jon Hamm Join Maggie Moore(s)
Tina Fey and Jon Hamm have been officially cast in Maggie Moore(s), an upcoming dark comedy “about a police chief in a small town who must deal with the back-to-back murders of two women with the exact same name.” Maggie Moore(s) was written by Paul Bernbaum. John Slattery will direct.
Ryan Gosling is The Actor
Ryan Gosling will headline The Actor, an upcoming amnesia thriller. Duke Johnson will direct from a script he wrote with Stephen Cooney. The Actor is based on Donald E. Westlake’s novel Memory.
According to Deadline, Gosling will play “New York actor Paul Cole, who is beaten and left for dead in 1950s Ohio. Stripped of his memory and stranded in a mysterious small town, Paul struggles to get back home, piece together, and reclaim the life and identity he’s lost.“
Zoe Saldana to Star in Pirate Film The Bluff
Zoe Saldana is set to star in The Bluff, an upcoming pirate movie that is set up at Netflix. Joe Ballarini (A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting) and Frank E. Flowers will write the script, with Flowers directing.
The movie is set in the Cayman Islands in the 1800s, and will star Saldana as “Ercell, a Caribbean woman whose secret past is revealed when her island is invaded by vicious buccaneers.”
Rachel Zegler Joins Shazam! Sequel
Rachel Zegler (upcoming West Side Story remake) has landed a role in Shazam! Fury of the Gods. No word on who she will be playing. David F. Sandberg returns to direct the DC Films sequel from a screenplay by Henry Gayden.
That’s it for last couple of weeks. What castings mentioned are you interested in seeing the most onscreen? Tell us down in the comments!
