Ryan Reynolds is set to lead Atom Egoyan‘s psychological thriller Queen of the Night.  According to Deadline, “Reynolds plays a father who discovers a series of disturbing clues eight years after his daughter is abducted, he becomes determined to find her when the trail leads him to believe the now 17-year old girl is alive.”  Egoyan recently wrapped on the West Memphis Three drama Devil’s Knot, and filming on Queen of the Night is slated to begin shooting in February in Ontario.

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Production has officially commenced on two upcoming projects.  First up, filming is underway in Atlanta on the real-life drama Devil’s Knot, directed by Atom Egoyan.  The film stars Reese Witherspoon and Colin Firth and follows the true story of the West Memphis 3 case, in which three teenagers were wrongfully charged with murdering three young boys in West Memphis, Arkansas in the 1990s.  Witherspoon plays the mother of one of the victims, while Firth plays the private investigator hired to look into the case.  The cast also includes Amy Ryan, Dane DeHaan, and Stephen Moyer.

Additionally, production has begun in New York on the relationship drama Very Good Girls.  Directed by Naomi Foner, the film stars Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen as two best friends determined to lose their virginity, only to fall for the same boy.  The cast also includes Boyd Holbrook, Demi Moore, Ellen Barkin, Richard Dreyfuss, Peter Skarsgaard, and Clark Gregg.  The score will be composed by Jenny Lewis. Hit the jump to read press releases for both films.

More casting additions for you today.  Here they are in brief:

• Stephen Moyer (True Blood) is set to join director Atom Egoyan’s Devil’s Knot, a feature starring Colin Firth and Reese Witherspoon based on the true life tale of the West Memphis Three.
• Rose Byrne (X-Men: First Class) will star in Shawn Levy’s The Internship, which reunites Wedding Crashers comics, Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson.

Hit the jump for more on each picture.

Some brief casting notes for you here with more details after the jump:

• Angela Bassett (Malcolm X) is set to join Gerard Butler (300) and Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight) in Antoine Fuqua’s Presidential thriller, Olympus Has Fallen.
• Derek Luke (Antwone Fisher) will star opposite Paula Patton (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol) in Baggage Claim, from writer/director/producer David Talbert.
• Robert Baker (Out of Time) and Brian Howe (The Pursuit of Happyness) are the most recent additions to the cast of Atom Egoyan’s Devil’s Knot, based on the true life saga of the West Memphis Three.

Hit the jump for more on each picture.

A trio of actors have landed some pivotal roles in director Atom Egoyan’s drama Devil’s Knot, which centers on the West Memphis 3 murder case.  For those unaware, three teenagers were convicted of killing three boys in Arkansas in 1993 despite the absence of physical evidence; they were eventually released in 2011 after countless private investigations.  Reese Witherspoon stars as the mother of one of the victims, while Colin Firth plays a private investigator hired to take on the case.  THR reports that Bruce Greenwood (Star Trek) and Michael Gladis (Mad Men) have joined the cast, with Greenwood set as the controversial judge who put the West Memphis 3 away and Gladis poised to play the defense attorney for suspect Jessie Misskelly, Jr.

Additionally, Deadline reports that Matt Letscher (Scandal) will play the defense attorney for suspect Jason Baldwin.  Production on Devil’s Knot begins next month, with Amy Ryan, Dane Dehaan, Mireille Enos and Alessandro Nivola rounding out the cast.

We’ve got a couple of casting stories regarding three very promising projects to share this afternoon.  Briefly:

• Anton Yelchin has been cast in director Jim Jarmusch’s vampire film Only Lovers Left Alive.
• Alfre Woodard joins the impressive ensemble cast for Twelve Years a Slave.
• Alessandro Nivola has scored a pivotal role in the West Mempis Three film Devil’s Knot opposite Colin Firth and Reese Witherspoon.

Hit the jump for more on each actor’s casting.

Some end-of-the-week casting notes for your enjoyment.  Here they are in brief:

• Kristopher Higgins (In Time) is in talks to join The Sweet Hereafter-director Atom Egoyan’s Devil’s Knot, a drama about the West Memphis Three.
• Brooke Smith (The Silence of the Lambs), Alexie Gilmore (Surfer, Dude) and Lucas Hedges (Moonrise Kingdom) are set to join Up in the Air-director Jason Reitman’s Labor Day adaptation.
• Sonya Walger (Lost) has been added to the cast of the academic comedy, Admission, starring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd.

Hit the jump for more on each film.

Here are some casting tidbits for you to enjoy today:

• Richard Madden (Game of Thrones) is set to topline Long Nights Short Mornings, an erotic indie for director Chadd Harbold (Revenge for Jolly!).
• AMC’s The Killing star, Mireille Enos will join Reese Witherspoon and Colin Firth in Atom Egoyan’s Devil’s Knot, a drama about the West Memphis Three.
• Disney’s Maleficent has crowned Brenton Thwaites (Home and Away) to play the prince in the Robert Stromberg-directed adaptation.

Hit the jump for more on each project.

Director Atom Egoyan’s (Chloe) next project Devil’s Knot is based on the true events surrounding the 1993 murder of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, and the subsequent arrest of three teens suspected of committing the murders through satanic rituals. Taking its title from the Mara Leveritt book by the same name, Devil’s Knot will presumably take a dramatic look at the investigation of the case, both by the local police involved and by journalists like Leveritt who found the arrest and conviction of the West Memphis Three highly suspicious. While details on the film are short, Reese Witherspoon is reportedly attached to star as Pam Hobbs, a mother of one of the victims who is at first convinced of the teenagers’ guilt, but starts to question their conviction once the case drags on. Hit the jump for more on Devil’s Knot.

Ah, the erotic thriller. A genre of ill repute that maintained a place in American culture on home video and late night cable through the eighties and nineties, the films of their ilk have dried up in the twenty first century. Why? It’s twofold, on one hand it’s that studios – if they want to do mainstream business – would rather make a film that isn’t rated R, and on the other the rise of internet pornography and the internet in general means that any nude scene can be found online. 2010’s Chloe relies more on the intrigue of its story over tawdry thrills, as Julianne Moore plays a wife convinced her husband (Liam Neeson) is having an affair, and hires a prostitute named Chloe (Amanda Seyfried) to see if she can’t seduce him, and in doing so excites the wife in unexpected ways. My review of Atom Egoyan’s Chloe on Blu-ray after the jump.

Opening this weekend is Atom Egoyan’s new movie Chloe.  Starring Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson and Amanda Seyfried, Chloe is an erotic thriller about a long married couple and a mysterious young woman.  The movie is a remake of the 2004 French film Nathalie and it’s the first time Egoyan did not write the screenplay to a film he directed.  While the film is getting great reviews, one of the reasons the movie is getting a lot of press is due to the amount of skin the two leading ladies show.  Let’s just say not a lot is left to the imagination.

To help promote the film, I recently got to speak with Amanda Seyfried. She talked about the success of Dear John, presenting at this year’s Academy Awards. how nervous she was about playing Chloe, filming in Toronto, and a lot more.  Hit the jump to watch the interview:

Earlier in the month we featured an international red band trailer for Chloe, the new film from director Atom Egoyan starring Amanda Seyfreid, Julianne Moore, and Liam Neeson.  Now Sony Pictures Classics has released an official green band trailer that is decidedly less European; that is to say, it features nearly all the same scenes but none of the nudity.  From the very tense footage on display, Chloe looks to be an escalating cat-and-mouse thriller infused with lust and betrayal a la Fatal Attraction.  Seyfreid seems perfect for her assigned role of seductress, given her uniquely lovely features, while Moore and Neeson are sure to bring gravitas to their potentially melodramatic roles.  More after the jump:

A red band international trailer for Amanda Seyfried’s latest film Chloe, a sexual thriller in the Unfaithful/Fatal Attraction vein also starring Julianne Moore and Liam Neeson. Seyfried portrays the titular character, a sexy call girl hired by Moore’s character to find out if her huband (Neeson) is cheating on her. Oscar nominated director Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter), who has explored this sort of subject matter before in other films such as Exotica, seems like a good fit for this taut thriller.

After Moore’s character hires Chloe to seduce her husband to find out if’s in fact cheating on her, Chloe becomes increasingly fatuated with the family and becomes a little too obssesed. It’s nice to see Seyfried gravitate towards more mature roles, and the presence of Moore and Neeson would seem to elevate the film beyond the typical sexual cat and mouse games fare.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer. Chloe is set for a March 19th release date.