Check out today’s casting news:

• Andy Garcia (The Untouchables) and Rob Riggle (21 Jump Street) have joined Luke Greenfield’s action-comedy Let’s Be Cops.
• Marton Csokas (The Bourne Supremacy) will star opposite Denzel Washington in Antoine Fuqua’s The Equalizer, also starring Chloe Grace Moretz.
• Jonny Weston (Chasing Mavericks) and Sofia Black-D’Elia (Skins) are in negotiations to join Michael Bay’s found-footage film, Almanac.

Hit the jump for more on each casting announcement.

You ever have a bad trip and come back down to Earth as a hero who is expected to save the world?  Well that’s what happens to the title character in John Dies at the End, the new horror comedy from writer/director Don Coscarelli (Bubba Ho-Tep).  If you like Coscarelli’s prior works, you know what you’re in for in this new trailer.

The picture stars Paul Giamatti, Chase Williamson, Rob Mayes, Clancy Brown, Glynn Turman, Doug Jones, Daniel Roebuck, Jonny Weston and Fabianne Therese.  Look for John Dies at the End on demand starting December 28th with a theatrical release on January 25th.  Hit the jump to watch the new trailer.

When we invent screenwriting programs that can write a screenplay from start to finish, it will crank out something like Chasing Mavericks.  The script is so cynically calculated in its plot beats and character motivations that it’s easy to forget the story is based on a person’s real life.  The biopic of surfing prodigy Jay Moriarty comes off as a disservice to his memory as his character, like everyone else in the movie, is one-dimensional and saddled with stilted dialogue.  The only times when Mavericks truly comes alive is when it embraces the act of surfing; everything else is a wipeout.

The first trailer for Curtis Hanson and Michael Apted‘s Chasing Mavericks has gone online.  The film is based on the true story of the relationship between legendary surfer Jay Moriarty (newcomer Jonny Weston) and his mentor, local legend Frosty Hesson (Gerard Butler), and how Moriarty made his name surfing the waves of Mavericks in Northern California.  Judging by the trailer, this looks like a nice movie that won’t blow anyone away, but could make for an enjoyable time at the pictures.  However, I’ve never surfed in my life, so I’d like to know what surfers think of this trailer.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  The film also stars Elisabeth Shue and Abigail Spencer.  Chasing Mavericks opens October 26th.