Olivia Wilde and Mark Duplass are set to team up for a new thriller set within the world of medicine.  Variety reports that Wilde and Duplass will lead Lionsgate’s Reawakening, which “follows a team of research students that discovers the secret to bringing subjects back from the dead—however, their actions result in a series of sinister consequences.”  So it’s kind of like a horror film version of Flatliners with more dead people.  Jiro Dreams of Sushi director David Gelb will be taking the helm, with Luke Dawson and Jeremy Slater handling scripting duties.

Horror guru Jason Blum—who is behind the Paranormal Activity series, Sinister, and a number of other spooktacular films from the past few years—will produce the pic through his Blumhouse banner.  The incredibly busy Duplass recently committed to starring in an HBO comedy pilot that he and his brother Jay Duplass created, and Wilde will be seen later this year in Ron Howard’s F1 racing drama Rush.

We’ve got a couple of casting stories to share this afternoon.  Briefly:

• Kiefer Sutherland is in talks to play the villain opposite Kit Harington (Game of Thrones) in Paul W.S. Anderson’s disaster epic Pompeii.
• Mark Duplass is joining Melissa McCarthy and Shirley MacLaine in the roadtrip comedy Tammy, which McCarthy will co-direct.
• Michael Angarano (Red State) is set to costar in the remake of Heat with Jason Statham.

Hit the jump for more details.

Two of Mad Men’s brassiest ladies have just landed new projects:

• Christina Hendricks will play the lead role in Campbell Scott’s (Company Retreat) adaptation of the Joan Didion novel A Book of Common Prayer.

• Elisabeth Moss, Mark Duplass (Safety Not Guaranteed), and Ted Danson will star in The One I Love from first time director Charlie McDowell (Fighting Jacob).

Hit the jump for more on each casting announcement.

The official synopses for a couple of upcoming Universal Pictures films have been released.  Director Peter Cornwell’s (The Haunting in Connecticut) supernatural thriller Mercy is based on the short story of the same name by Stephen King and stars Chandler Riggs (The Walking Dead) and Joel Courtney (Super 8) as two young boys who, after moving with their mother to take care of their dying grandmother at a decrepit farmhouse, encounter a dark spirit.  Shirley Knight, Frances O’Connor, Mark Duplass, and Dylan McDermott also star in this Jason Blum-produced (Paranormal Activity) thriller.

Additionally, we’ve got an official synopsis for the action-comedy Ride Along.  Directed by Tim Story (Fantastic Four), the film stars Kevin Hart as a fast-talking aspiring police officer who must team up with his girlfriend’s brother, a hot-tempered cop (Ice Cube), to prove that he’s worthy of being her husband.  The film also stars John Leguizamo, Jay Pharoah, and Laurence Fishbourne and opens on January 17, 2014.  Hit the jump to read the full synopses.

The sci-fi comedy genre is one that’s incredibly tricky to pull off, but director Justin Reardon will certainly give it his best shot with the upcoming Convention.  We already knew that Ben Kingsley, Jennifer Aniston, and Mark Duplass were set to star in the film, but K5 International made it official today with a press release that also includes an intriguing full synopsis for the pic.  The story centers around a box convention, at which an intrepid inventor (Duplass) premieres his creation: a five-sided box.  His revolutionary design seems destined to turn the world of folded boxes on its end until he learns that his production process alters the space-time continuum.

Kingsley is set to play a “maniacal box magnate” appropriately named Bobby Schroedinger (I see what you did there), and Reardon just recently wrapped his debut feature, A Many Splintered Thing starring Chris Evans and Michelle Monaghan.  Hit the jump to read the full synopsis for Convention.  Production will get underway this summer.

In a move that surprises no one, HBO has renewed its highly discussed, popular and divisive series Girls for a third season with an expanded episode count, totaling twelve.  The series was already brought back early this year (returning in January after premiering last spring in April with the sharp political comedy Veep), and HBO seems eager to ride the zeitgeist wave and bring even more of the series as fast as it can.

Elsewhere, the premium cable channel has ordered a half-hour pilot from Jay and Mark Duplass who are set to write, direct and produce (though not star or appear in) the series called Togetherness.  Togetherness will focus on two couples living under one roof, working through their relationships and pursuing their dreams.  Hit the jump for more.

A couple of interesting acquisitions have been announced.  First up, Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Productions—known for its small budget, big profit model with the Paranormal Activity films and Insidious—has acquired a found footage movie called Peachfuzz, produced by the incredibly hard working brothers Mark and Jay Duplass.  Plot details on the project are being kept under lock and key, but Mark stars in the film that centers on a young man who answers a Craigslist ad “and gets much more than he bargained for.”  Production on the Patrick Brice film has already wrapped.

Hit the jump for news regarding writer/director Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring, starring Emma Watson.

Good news awaits fans of FX’s comedy series The League. Coming off of strong ratings for season four, the network announced today that they have ordered a 13-episode fifth season of the heavily improvised show.  Quality-wise the series has showed no signs of slowing down, and the stellar ensemble of Mark Duplass, Stephen Rannazzisi, Nick Kroll, Paul Scheer, Katie Aselton, and Jon Lajoie continue to kill it week after week, not to mention those glorious way-too-brief appearances of Jason Mantzoukas’ Raffi.  The show’s fourth season wraps up tonight with back-to-back episodes, while production on season five will begin next summer for a fall 2013 debut.  Hit the jump to read the full press release. 

I have yet to embrace fully the mumblecore genre. I want to love it, having come of age as a filmmaker working on the indies of the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, but perhaps that is my problem: I see mumblecore as the natural progression of so many films on which I crewed that never saw the light of day. Like any other genre, simply creating a movie and actually executing a good movie are two different things, and too often mumblecore-type pics feel like a means to an end rather than well-crafted films. Which does not mean the best of the bunch are not good, entertaining films, exactly how I felt about Jeff, Who Lives At Home (and I was not a fan of the Duplass brothers’ break-out picture, The Puffy Chair).  Hit the jump for my review of the Blu-ray.

Two more bits of casting news this evening.  Here they are in brief:

• Yancy Butler, who appeared as Angie D’Amico in Kick-Ass, is set to return in the same role for the Jeff Wadlow-directed sequel.
• Jonathan Daniel Brown (Project X) is set to join the cast of the horror comedy Milo, also starring Ken Marino, Gillian Jacobs and Peter Stormare.

Hit the jump for details on both projects.

The improvised indie drama Your Sister’s Sister, from filmmaker Lynn Shelton, is a human story of grief and romance, and finding humor in unlikely places.  Jack (Mark Duplass) is an emotionally unstable slacker, still reeling from the death of his brother Tom, a year later.  When Tom’s ex-girlfriend Iris (Emily Blunt) offers up her family cabin on an island in the Pacific Northwest, Jack runs into Iris’ sister Hannah (Rosemarie DeWitt), who herself is reeling from the abrupt end of a long-term relationship and looking for solace.

At the film’s press day, actor Mark Duplass spoke to Collider for this exclusive interview about how he came up with the idea for the film which he brought to Lynn Shelton, what he was looking to do with this character, improvising with Emily Blunt and Rosemarie DeWitt, the easiest and hardest scenes to improvise, and what he likes about collaborating with Shelton, as a filmmaker.  He also talked about working with Kathryn Bigelow on her Osama Bin Laden film (tentatively titled Zero Dark Thirty), what he looks for in acting roles, what he enjoys about doing the FX series The League, and what he’s looking to do next.  Check out what he had to say after the jump:

Brothers Jay and Mark Duplass, who burst onto the scene in 2005 with their well-received indie The Puffy Chair, are now looking to put their talents to work on a remake.  The Duplass brothers are in talks to write and possibly direct a redo of the 1978 rom-com Same Time, Next Year for Universal Pictures.  The original starred Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn as two people who develop an extramarital affair with each other in which they meet up once a year to rekindle the sparks.  Over the years, the two catch up on each other’s lives and develop a deeper and more complex relationship.  Hit the jump for more.

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

• Multifaceted writer/director/actor Mark Duplass has been added to the already-in-production drama about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, Zero Dark Thirty, directed by Kathryn Bigelow.
• Rapper T.I. joins Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy in the comedy Identity Theft.
• Bobby Cannavale has been added to the cast of Woody Allen’s untitled next film.

Hit the jump for more details on each casting addition.

Now that convention season is officially upon us, it seems appropriate to turn our sights to the most anticipated of all conventions: the national box convention.  That’s right my friends, Sir Ben Kingsley (Hugo) and Mark Duplass (Safety Not Guaranteed) will star in the indie pic, Convention, a sci-fi comedy centered around a box convention, at which an intrepid inventor (Duplass) premieres his creation: a five-sided box.  His revolutionary design seems destined to turn the world of folded boxes on its end until  he learns that his production process alters the space-time continuum.  Commercial director Justin Reardon will make his feature debut in Convention, with a script from Christopher Painter.  Hit the jump for more on Convention.

Red Flag has released the first trailer for The Do-Deca-Pentathlon, the latest from Jay and Mark Duplass (Jeff Who Lives at Home).  Mark Kelly and Steve Zissis star as two grown brothers who secretly compete in a 25-part homemade Olympics during a family reunion: “When their fierce and disruptive competition is uncovered, the brothers must choose between their passion for beating the hell out of each other and the greater good of the family.”  The movie looks charming in that ultra low-key way that the Duplass brothers have mastered.  As someone who grew up challenging three brothers to thousands of competitions across a few dozen sports, I am the target audience.

Jennifer Lafleur, Julie Vorus, and Reid Williams also star.  The Do-Deca-Pentathlon is due in theaters on July 6.  Watch the trailer after the jump.