Film Casting: PUNCH IT, 13 HOURS, Tom Hardy out of SUICIDE SQUAD

Punch It, 13 Hours, Suicide Squad, and other movies have 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.

Punch It

Savage Mutts

The Short Happy Life of Butch Livingston

Michael Vartan (Bates Motel, Alias) will star in indie drama Punch It, the next film from director Nika Agiashvili…He’ll play an ex-boxer-turned-loan shark who gets involved with a local mobster

Agiashvili will direct from his own script. The helmer next unveils a segment in omnibus feature Tbilisi, I Love You, the latest in the “Cities Of Love” film series launched by 2006’s Paris, Je’Taime. He is also set to direct indies Savage Mutts and The Short Happy Life of Butch Livingston.

The Secret In Their Eyes

Dean Norris has joined Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman and Julia Roberts in crime thriller The Secret In Their Eyes, the Billy Ray

the film centers on an ex-assistant DA (Ejiofor) who returns to Los Angeles on a joint task force with the FBI, still obsessed by the unsolved murder that continues to haunt him. Roberts is set to play his friend and former partner whose daughter was murdered years ago.

Norris…will play a District Attorney investigator on the case.

The Accountant

John Lithgow has been cast opposite Ben Affleck in The Accountant

Lithgow has been set to play Lamar Black, a tech magnate in the robotics field who hires Affleck’s character to look at his company’s accounting given some recent irregularities.

American Drug Lord

Legendary has acquired the 2011 Rolling Stone article American Drug Lord, and they have set American Sniper scribe Jason Hall to write the script as a potential star vehicle for [Charlie Hunnam].

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It is based on the story of Edgar Valdez, a high school football player from Texas who would become the only U.S. citizen to rise to the level of cartel leader in Mexico. From his base in Acapulco, Valdez, who brought the nickname La Barbie that was given him by his high school football coach, made $130 million in one year moving drugs from Colombia. He became increasingly feared and allegedly ratcheted up the violence that involved filming the brutal executions of rivals and posting them on the Internet. As the drug riches escalated along with the violence, the rival cartels turned on one another, with the help of crooked cops. Valdez’s life became a struggle to stay alive.

Suicide Squad

Tom Hardy has dropped out of Suicide Squad, Warner Bros.’ all-star comic book movie being directed by David Ayer. Not losing a beat, the studio has made overtures to Jake Gyllenhaal, who has generated heat for his performance in Nightcrawler, to replace Hardy

Hardy was to have played Rick Flagg, the leader of the group that consists of Batman villains Deadshot (Smith), Joker (Leto) and Harley Quinn (Robbie), plus Boomerang (Courtney) and Enchantress (Delevingne).

Hardy’s exit is due to scheduling, according to sources. The actor is currently shooting The Revenant, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s frontier drama that also stars Leonardo DiCaprio, and that shoot is now looking to go longer than initially planned.

Hardy is also starring in Mad Max: Fury Road for Warners, which opens May 15, smack in the middle of Suicide filming. Suicide is due to begin shooting mid-April in Toronto, but Hardy will have press commitments for Fury Road that will take him around the world.

Gyllenhaal has an offer to replace Hardy but it’s unclear whether or not the actor will take it on.

13 Hours

John Krasinski is in talks to star in Michael Bay’s Benghazi movie 13 Hours.

The political drama is an adaptation of Mitchell Zuckoff’s book about the attack on an American compound in Libya that left U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens dead.

Bay will direct the Paramount project from a script by Chuck Hogan. The story centers on the six-man security team that fought to defend the many Americans stationed at the U.S. State Department Special Mission Compound in Benghazi after it was attacked on Sept. 11, 2012.

Krasinski will play the movie’s lead, a security operator named Jack Silva. Silva is a pseudonym used by Zuckoff in his book.

The Big Short

Steve Carell…is in talks to join Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling and Christian Bale in The Big Short

Carell will play Steve Eisman, a money manager who shorted subprime mortgages for FrontPoint Partners.

(Gosling is to play Deutsche Bank trader Greg Lippmann. Bale will portray Michael Burry, the founder of the Scion Capital and one of the first people to predict the coming crisis. In a supporting role, Pitt will take on Ben Hockett, a partner at Cornwall Capital.)

[The] Big Short, which has a script by Adam McKay. McKay is on board to direct the drama

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Source: Deadline, Hollywoodreporter