Here’s today’s casting update:

• Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter series) is set to star in crime-thriller Tokyo Vice for music video/commercials director Anthony Mandler, scripted by playwright JT Rogers.
• Naomi Watts (King Kong) and Adam Driver (Girls) are in talks to join Ben Stiller (Zoolander) in the Noah Baumbach-directed midlife crisis comedy, While We’re Young.
• James D’Arcy (Cloud Atlas) and Nina Dobrev (The Vampire Diaries) have joined the Luke Greenfield-directed comedy, Let’s Be Cops.

Hit the jump for more on each casting announcement.

Two casting notices tonight:

• Spartacus: War of the Damned star Liam McIntyre will cross the bridge from Roman to Greek mythology to co-star in Hercules 3D, directed by Renny Harlin (12 Rounds).  Kellan Lutz (Twilight) stars as the titular demigod.
• Naomi Watts is in talks to star alongside Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy, and Chris O’Dowd in St. Vincent De Van Nuys, the feature directorial debut of Ted Melfi.

More on both projects after the break.

Filming is underway on Alejandro González Iñárritu’s black comedy Birdman.  Fox Searchlight and New Regency announced today that principal photography has begun in New York City on Birdman, which centers on an actor who once played an iconic superhero, and now faces troubles with his ego and family as he prepares to mount a Broadway play in a bid to reclaim past glory.  Michael Keaton stars as the struggling actor, and he’s surrounded by a fantastic ensemble cast that includes Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, Emma Stone, Zach Galifianakis, Amy Ryan, and Andrea Riseborough.

Iñárritu co-wrote the original script alongside Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, and Armando Bo, and is also producing the film with John Lesher.  Hit the jump to read the full press release.

Director Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel, Amores Perros) has assembled quite the cast for his upcoming comedy Birdman.  The film centers on an actor who once played an iconic superhero, and now faces troubles with his ego and family as he prepares to mount a Broadway play in a bid to reclaim past glory.  Though Iñárritu’s previous work veers on the heavy drama side of things, he’s nabbed some top-notch comedic talent to bring this lighter film to fruition as Michael Keaton, Emma Stone, Naomi Watts, and Zach Galifianakis have been enlisted to topline the pic.  Hit the jump for more.

Continuing on with our “Road to Oscar” feature, today we’re going to take a look at how the race for Best Actress played out over the past 12 months.  With the 85th Academy Awards taking place this coming Sunday, we figured this week would be a nice opportunity to reflect on how a number of Oscar categories got to where they are today.  Join us after the jump as we break down the race for Best Actress.

The first international trailer for director Anne Fontaine’s (Coco Before Chanel) drama Two Mothers has, fittingly, found its way online on Valentine’s Day.  The film stars Naomi Watts and Robin Wright as two lifelong friends who unexpectedly fall in love with each other’s sons (yes, it’s basically a feature film adaptation of “Motherlover”).  I caught the film at Sundance at it’s a peculiar movie.  The story chronicles these two relationships over a number of years and shows the ups and downs that feel universal to any relationship, but it’s hard to forget that you’re watching two middle-aged women cuddle up to boys that they have known since they were babies.  It’s not a bad movie, but it did elicit quite a bit of unintentional laughter at its Sundance premiere.  You can read my full review right here.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film also stars Xavier Samuel, James Frecheville, and Ben Mendelsohn and will hit theaters later this year.

It’s been about ten months since the last episode of Funny or Die series Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis, but I guess to make up for the delay, they’re breaking out all the stars.  In the first of a two-part “Oscar Edition”, the show’s guests include Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook), Naomi Watts (The Impossible), Christ of Waltz (Django Unchained), Anne Halfway (French Movie), and Amys Adams (The Master).  Watching these brief interviews, I wish they were expanded out into full segments, but I’ll take as much of Between Two Ferns as I can get.

Hit the jump to check out the latest episode of Between Two Ferns.

Relationships are complicated.  Every person knows this; it is a universal truth.  Love can be both the best experience and the worst experience, but it’s incredibly difficult to live your life on this earth unscathed by the scars of loving another person.  Of course, a relationship is made a bit more complicated when you fall in love with your best friend’s son, and director Anne Fontaine takes this complication one step further by chronicling the extended love affair of two best friends who fall in love with each other’s sons.  Hit the jump for my full review of Two Mothers.

There are so many big movie stars in Movie 43 that it’s borderline ridiculous, so a new featurette aims to clarify some things with a little game of “Six Degrees of Separation.”  You can check out 55 images from the movie here and see how Emma Stone, Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Naomi Watts, Terrence Howard, Halle Berry, Jason Sudeikis, Gerard Butler, Kristen Bell, Chloe Moretz, Josh Duhamel, Johnny Knoxville, Elizabeth Banks, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Richard Gere, Anna Faris, Justin Long, Liev Schreiber, Uma Thurman, Seann William Scott, Kieran Culkin, Leslie Bibb, Jimmy Bennett, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, Kate Bosworth, Patrick Warburton, Tony Shalhoub, Chris Pratt, Jack McBrayer, Aasif Mandvi and Bobby Cannavale are all connected after the jump.  Movie 43 opens January 25, 2013. 

The nominations for the 85th Academy Awards have been announced, and it’s quite a whirlwind of nominees.  As expected, Lincoln landed the most nominations with 12, followed with Ang Lee’s Life of Pi which nabbed 11.  The big story here, though, is the Best Director category.  Shockingly, only two (two!) of the DGA nominees for Best Director made the Oscar cut: Ang Lee and Steven Spielberg.  The rest of the category was filled out by Benh Zeitlin for Beasts of the Southern Wild, David O. Russell for Silver Linings Playbook, and Michael Haneke for Amour.  It was almost guaranteed that Ben Affleck and Kathryn Bigelow would be landing nominations for Argo and Zero Dark Thirty, respectively, but shockingly neither made the cut.  Apparently those films just directed themselves.  Based off today’s nominations, it now looks like it’s (surprisingly) down to Lincoln vs. Silver Linings Playbook for the big win.

Hit the jump to check out the list of nominees, and click here to check them against my predictions (somehow I predicted the Best Picture and Supporting Actor categories perfectly).  The 85th Academy Awards will take place on February 24th.

At last, Oscar is upon us.  Back in November I shared a look at the early awards season race by way of our 2013 Oscar Preview articles, and now nearly two months later there’s still quite a bit up in the air.  This truly is one of the more exciting awards races in recent years, as 2012 is so stacked with quality that there are a surprising number of uncertainties this close to the Academy Awards ceremony.  Nevertheless, I am once again foolishly going to attempt to predict how the Oscar nominations will shake out when they’re announced tomorrow morning, January 10th.  Hit the jump to check out my predictions.

Opening this weekend, in limited release, is director Juan Antonio Bayona’s The Impossible.  Based on a true story, the film stars Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor as the parents of three boys vacationing in Thailand in 2004 when the tsunami hit.  Having survived, but finding themselves separated, the family members search for each other amidst the chaos, encountering strangers caught up in the same situation along the way.  The film also stars Tom Holland, Samuel Joslin, and Oaklee Pendergast.  For more on The Impossible, here are eight clips and the trailer.

At the recent Los Angeles press day I got to speak to Naomi Watts.  We talked about why she wanted to make The Impossible, how she prepared for the role, filming the intense water scenes, and more.  In addition, we also talked about David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive and director Oliver Hirschbiegel’s Diana movie (she’s playing Princess Diana).  Hit the jump to watch.

The comedy omnibus Movie 43 has something for everyone with its enormous, star-studded cast: Emma Stone, Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Naomi Watts, Terrence Howard, Halle Berry, Jason Sudeikis, Gerard Butler, Kristen Bell, Chloe Moretz, Josh Duhamel, Johnny Knoxville, Elizabeth Banks, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Richard Gere, Anna Faris, Justin Long, Liev Schreiber, Uma Thurman, Seann William Scott, Kieran Culkin, Leslie Bibb, Jimmy Bennett, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, Kate Bosworth, Patrick Warburton, Tony Shalhoub, Chris Pratt, Jack McBrayer, Aasif Mandvi, Bobby Cannavale.

Movie 43 opens on January 25, 2013, so Relativity sent over an exclusive TV spot.  If you can handle jokes about homeschool incest and inappropriate uses for hot sauce, watch it after the jump.  And make sure to check out the red band trailer.

We have eight clips from director Juan Antonio Bayona’s The Impossible to share with you today.  Starring Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor as the parents of three boys, The Impossible centers on their family vacation in Thailand which is devastated by a tsunami. Having survived, but finding themselves separated, the family members search for each other amidst the chaos, encountering strangers caught up in the same situation along the way.  Hit the jump to watch the clips.

Today, Sundance announced their stellar Premieres line-up and we have the first images from a few of the movies playing in the category:

• Top of the Lake – Directed by Jane Champion and Garth Davis, written by Campion and Gerard Lee, starring Elisabeth Moss, Holly Hunter, Peter Mullan, and David Wenham.

• Two Mothers – Directed by Anne Fontaine, written by Christopher Hampton, starring Naomi Watts, Robin Wright, Xavier Samuel, and James Frechevile.

• Very Good Girls – Written and directed by Naomi Foner starring Dakota Fanning, Elizabeth Olsen, Demi Moore, Richard Dreyfuss, and Ellen Barkin.

Hit the jump for the images and synopses.  The 2013 Sundance Film Festival runs January 17 – 27.