Movie News

Film Casting: DOCTOR STRANGE, AMERICAN PASTORAL & More

Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange, American Pastoral, and other films have all made recent film casting, screenwriting, and director news. These films come from movie studios primarily based in the United States. The castings, screenwriters, and directors are subject to change.

Dragon Blade

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John Cusack and Adrien Brody have now joined Jackie Chan on the film [Dragon Blade].

Cusack will play Lucius, a Roman general who leads a legion of soldiers into China. Brody plays power-hungry Tiberius, who has killed Roman Consul Crassus and chases after Lucius with 100,000 troops. Jackie Chan stars as commander of the protectorate of the western regions, who teams up with Lucius to protect China’s borders and sovereignty.

The film also stars K-pop boy band Super Junior’s Choi Si-won, along with Chinese actresses Lin Peng and Wang Ruoxin.

Daniel Lee is directing the film

American Pastoral

[Philip Noyce] confirmed…that American Pastoral will be his next project as a director with Ewan McGregor starring in the lead role.

 McGregor will play Seymour “Swede” Levov, a blonde Jewish businessman living in Newark, New Jersey, whose conventional life is disturbed by the political upheaval of the ’60s under the Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson.

The Runner

Nicolas Cage is getting more company in the political drama The Runner. He stars for writer-director Austin Stark in the film as Colin Price, an idealistic but flawed New Orleans Congressman who is forced to confront his dysfunctional life after his career is destroyed in a sex scandal. Gladiator‘s Connie Nielsen will play Price’s wife Deborah, a high powered attorney with her own political ambitions, while Peter Fonda has been cast as his father, a former mayor of New Orleans.

Bryan BattWendell PierceAlso joining the cast are Bryan Batt (12 Years A Slave, Mad Men) as a Wall Street financier who caters to the big oil companies, and Wendell Pierce (Treme, The Wire) as Frank Legrand, Price’s Chief of Staff.

Doctor Strange

Marvel Studios is negotiating with Jon Spaihts to write the script for Doctor Strange, the franchise-launching film which will be directed by Scott Derrickson…They have a short list of actors that includes Tom Hardy and Benedict Cumberbatch, and I now hear that Dallas Buyers Club star Jared Leto is also on that list. The first draft of the Doctor Strange script was penned by Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer.

Spectral

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Clayne Crawford has locked in a role in Legendary Pictures’ thriller Spectral. The project…stars James Badge Dale and is being helmed by first-timer Nic Mathieu…[Crawford will] play Sergeant Calvin Toll, a focused but short-fused military lifer. Earlier this month Max Martini also joined the cast.

The Light Between Oceans and The Danish Girl

Alicia Vikande..is closing a deal to star with Michael Fassbender in the Derek Cianfrance-directed adaptation of the M.L. Stedman novel The Light Between Oceans for DreamWorks. At the same time, I hear that she is the choice of The King’s Speech director Tom Hooper to star opposite his Les Miserables guy Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl for Working Title.

Baby, Baby, Baby

Brian Klugman [has]…Now…set his next drama about a writer navigating life and relationships, which he’ll again work in front of and behind the camera. Baby, Baby, Baby tracks the relationship between two mismatched people who try to move past their baggage to make their love work. Klugman stars as a writer of short stories living in LA whose mind wanders into fantasy asides starring famous people reflecting the state of his relationship. Adrianne Palicki (G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Friday Night Lights) and Michaela Conlin (Bones, The Lincoln Lawyer) star as the two women in his life, with Conlin playing Klugman’s ex-girlfriend and Palicki as the painter he moves on with.

How to Be Single

“Community” actress Alison Brie is in talks to star in the New Line comedy “How to Be Single.”

Lily Collins is also on board with Christian Ditter directing.

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Source: ComingsoonVariety, Liveforfilms

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Rollo Tomasi

Rollo Tomasi is a Connecticut-based film critic, TV show critic, news, and editorial writer. He will have a MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University in 2025. Rollo has written over 700 film, TV show, short film, Blu-ray, and 4K-Ultra reviews. His reviews are published in IMDb's External Reviews and in Google News. Previously you could find his work at Empire Movies, Blogcritics, and AltFilmGuide. Now you can find his work at FilmBook.
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