We’ve got a few casting stories to share today.  Briefly:

• Michael Caine and Jennifer Garner have boarded the aging rock star film Imagine, joining Al Pacino, Annette Bening, and Bobby Cannavale in the cast.
• Samuel L. Jackson will play the President of the United States in the actioner Big Game.
• Jennifer Jason Leigh (Weeds), David Thewlis (Harry Potter), and Tom Noonan (Heat) will reprise their roles from the stage play version of Charlie Kaufman’s Anomalisa in the animated feature film adaptation, which Kaufman is co-directing.

Hit the jump for more on each of these projects.

Summit Entertainment and OddLot Entertainment announced today that production has begun on director Ivan Reitman’s sports dramedy Draft Day.  The film takes place within the span of one day, the day of the NFL Draft, as Kevin Costner plays a general manger who has the opportunity to save football in Cleveland when he trades for the number one pick.  As the day’s events unfold, “he must quickly decide what he’s willing to sacrifice in pursuit of perfection as the lines between his personal and professional life become blurred on a life-changing day for a few hundred young men with dreams of playing in the NFL.”

Filming is underway in New York, where the production will shoot some scenes at the actual 2013 NFL Draft.  Once that is complete, filming will move to Cleveland.  The ensemble includes Jennifer Garner, Denis Leary, Ellen Burstyn, Frank Langella, Josh Pence, Rosanna Arquette, Timothy Simons and 42 star Chadwick Boseman, and the start-of-production press release notes that Terry Crews and Sean “P. Diddy” Combs have also joined the cast.  Hit the jump to read the full press release, which includes the entire cast listing.

Some excellent, wonderful, not bad, very good news for Disney’s adaptation of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day: Jennifer Garner is reportedly in talks to join the live-action picture.  Steve Carell is already set to play the title character’s father and Garner would play his mother.  Miguel Arteta (Cedar Rapids) is helming, having stepped in for Lisa Cholodenko who recently exited the director’s chair. Cholodenko and Rob Lieber wrote the screenplay adaptation of Judith Viorst’s children’s book featuring Alexander, a young boy who has the worst day ever.  Deadline reports that production is scheduled to begin this fall.

Here are today’s latest casting announcements:

• Jennifer Garner (Alias) is in negotiations to join Kevin Costner in Draft Day, a sports dramedy directed by Ivan Reitman.
• Chloë Grace Moretz (Kick-Ass) is in talks to star opposite Charlize Theron in Dark Places, an adaptation of the Gillian Flynn novel from writer/director Gilles Paquet-Brenner. 

Hit the jump for more on both casting stories.

A new batch of presenters has been announced for the upcoming 85th Academy Awards ceremony, and we figured now would be a good time to round up all of the presenters announced thus far in one handy story.  It was announced today that Jane Fonda, Kristen Stewart, Jennifer Garner, and Kerry Washington have joined the rather long list of presenters for the ceremony, which will be hosted by Seth Macfarlane.

We already learned that Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Renner, and Mark Ruffalo from The Avengers will be presenting together, and Macfarlane has put together a tribute to movie musicals from the past decade that includes Dreamgirls’ Jennifer Hudson, Chicago’s Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Les Miserables’ Hugh Jackman, Amanda Seyfried, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Eddie Redmayne, Aaron Tveit, Helena Bonham Carter, and Samantha Barks.  Hit the jump to take a gander at the entire list of presenters, and click here to catch up on all of our recent Road to Oscar series.  The Oscars will be held this Sunday, February 24th, at 7pm EST on ABC. 

Today’s casting roundup runs the gamut from rainbow-colored fantasy to the stark reality of AIDS:

• Jennifer Garner is in talks to star opposite Matthew McConaughey in The Dallas Buyer’s Club.  McConaughey stars as a man with AIDS who survives by smuggling medication into the U.S. to for himself and other patients.
• Willow Shields, Karl Urban, and Leehom Wang are set to star in The Wonder 3D, which follows three kids who find the end of a rainbow… with unexpected consequences.

Details on both projects after the jump.

The trailer for the long-delayed comedy Butter has gone online.  The film premiered at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, but was pushed back from March 2012 to October in order to capitalize on the upcoming Presidential election (even though it has nothing to do with this year’s election).  I was eagerly anticipating the flick, but when I saw it at TIFF, it turned out to be a massive disappointment.  The movie has several different tones, and has no idea how to fully develop any of them.  The plot is supposed to be a satire of the 2008 Democratic primary where a wronged spouse (Jennifer Garner) attempts to win her husband’s (Ty Burrell) butter-carving title only to meet stiff competition from a young black girl named Destiny (Yara Shahidi).  The trailer briefly touches on the political bit, but plays more towards the delightful dark comedy of the film while hiding all the saccharine stuff.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  The film also stars Olivia Wilde, Rob Corddry, Alicia Silverstone, Ashley Greene, and Hugh Jackman.  Butter opens October 5th.

Magical realism is not a genre you see much of on film.  Every once in awhile a Midnight in Paris or a Benjamin Button will come along, but for the most part the intermingling of the supernatural with decidedly human stories remains a somewhat neglected sub-genre.  The Odd Life of Timothy Green, a welcome addition to the underutilized genre, uses a magical plant grown child as the starting point for a drama about a fading community and a burgeoning family.  In the film, Jennifer Garner stars as Cindy Green, one half of probably the nicest couple in film history, who along with his her husband Jim (Joel Edgerton) literally wishes a child into existence.  The newfound parents then have to grapple with the responsibilities and missteps that come with their unforeseen parenthood.

In the following interview, Jennifer Garner discusses the nostalgic undercurrents for ‘traditional’ family values in Timothy Green, the ‘missteps’ of parenthood and what type of genre/character she would like to play next (a musical).  For the full interview, hit the jump.

It looked as thought the Weinstein Company would give Butter a limited Oscar-qualifying run in 2011 before opening the film wide in 2012, but that may no longer be the case.  The studio has just launched a viral website for the movie along with the first clip.  The clip features aspiring butter carving champion Laura Pickler (Jennifer Garner) giving a speech for why her butter statue deserves to win.  You’ll see that Garner is going full-Palin in her performance, which is an odd choice since the script initially sets up the satire that Pickler is a Hillary Clinton-type figure: her husband (Ty Burrell) is the former butter carving champion and he cheats on her but she’s keeping her politicial aspirations high since because she believes winning at butter carving will help launch her campaign for governor.  As I said in my review, if Butter had simply picked a tone and stuck with it, the movie probably wouldn’t have been such a disappointing mess.

Hit the jump to check out the clip.  The film also stars Olivia Wilde, Ashley Greene, Rob Corddry, Alicia Silverstone, Yara Shahidi, Kristen Schaal, and Hugh Jackman.  No release date has been announced for Butter. [Update: We have removed the clip and the link to the site at the request of The Weinstein Company because the site and the clip aren't ready for public consumption yet.]

Jim Field Smith’s Butter could have been a scathing political satire.  It could have been a wicked dark comedy.  It could have even been a heartwarming family drama.  Instead, Butter tries to be all of these things and only manages to squeeze out occasional bits of humor and heart from any of them.  The film is endlessly frustrating, consistently disappointing, and one where every missed opportunity is a stinging reminder of how this could have been a great movie.

The dark comedy thriller Better Living Through Chemistry has been going through some casting changes as of late. Last month, Sam Rockwell replaced Jeremy Renner in the lead role (since Renner is starring in every movie possible for the next two years), and now Olivia Wilde is in talks to replace Jennifer Garner in the lead female role. Garner is forced to leave the project not because of scheduling issues, but because she’s now expecting her third child with husband Ben Affleck.

Variety reports that Wilde is in talks to play a trophy wife with whom Rockwell’s small-town pharmacist strikes up an affair as a result of a loveless marriage. Things take a turn, however, when the two start using hard drugs and begin plotting the murder of Wilde’s husband. Michelle Monaghan will play Rockwell’s wife and Judi Dench is set as the film’s narrator. Writer/directors Geoff Moore and David Posamentier are making their feature film debut with the project, and I must say I’m quite intrigued. The cast is spot-on for the darkly comic story, so I’m definitely looking forward to seeing how this one shapes up.

If TIFF approves my application, I’ll be making sure I get in to see the satire Butter.  The movie is set in the competitive world of butter carving and the story parodies the 2008 Democratic Primary.  Jennifer Garner plays an ambitious Midwestern woman whose philandering husband (Ty Burrell) previously won the title.  Garner’s character believes the title is her but then she’s challenged by a teenage African-American girl (Yara Shahidi). The outstanding cast also features Hugh Jackman, Olivia Wilde, Kristen Schaal, Rob Corddry, Alicia Silverstone, and Ashley Greene.  There’s also the first image from Madonna’s W.E. I don’t much care about that movie.

Hit the jump to check out the W.E. image .  The 2011 Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 8 – 18th. [We've removed the Butter image at the request of the studio]

We posted this trailer yesterday but Disney asked us to take it down because it was “incorrect”.  Today it’s up on Yahoo! Movies and it’s almost exactly the same so here’s what I wrote yesterday:  The trailer for The Odd Life of Timothy Green stars out innocently enough.  Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgerton play a couple who are unable to conceive a child.  They write down their hopes and dreams for the child they’ll never have, put the writing in a box, and bury the box in their backyard.  In the middle of the night, they awaken to find a dirt-covered young boy in their house and he’s calling them “mom and dad.”  If that actually happened, you would not be uplifted.  You would be freaked out beyond all reason.  Furthermore, we’re now going to have scores of child molesters burying their wish lists and hoping for a case of sprouted boy.  Is that what you want The Odd Life of Timothy Green?  IS IT?

If you missed the trailer yesterday you can check it out after the jump along with the poster.  Watch the trailer and be horrified with me.  The Odd Life of Timothy Green is set to open August 15, 2012 and believe me, I question the wisdom of running a trailer for a movie that’s over a year away.

The trailer for The Odd Life of Timothy Green stars out innocently enough.  Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgerton play a couple who are unable to conceive a child.  They write down their hopes and dreams for the child they’ll never have, put the writing in a box, and bury the box in their backyard.  In the middle of the night, they awaken to find a dirt-covered young boy in their house and he’s calling them “mom and dad.”  If that actually happened, you would not be uplifted.  You would be freaked out beyond all reason.  Furthermore, we’re now going to have scores of child molesters burying their wish lists and hoping for a case of sprouted boy.  Is that what you want The Odd Life of Timothy Green?  IS IT?

Hit the jump to check out the saccharine and unnerving trailer.  The film will likely open sometime next year. [Update: We've removed the trailer at the request of the studio.  This version was leaked and the "correct" version will be released tomorrow on Yahoo! Movies.]

With the remake business, you’re already (at least usually) against a brick wall. What’s remade aren’t usually flawed films, but movies that are regarded well enough to be liked, but aren’t classics (those films are ripped off wholesale). And so there’s a remake of the 1981 Dudley Moore film Arthur thirty years later starring Russell Brand.  Why now? Probably because Brand seems like he could be a movie star, and Get Him to the Greek did good enough business. The remake (which also stars Helen Mirren, Greta Gerwig and Jennifer Garner) is about a spoiled rich kid/drunk who finds true love, but is supposed to marry someone else. It works, but almost in spite of its narrative. My review of the Blu-ray of 2011’s Arthur follows after the jump.