Lily Collins was poised to land the female lead in the feature adaptation of Dean Koontz novel Odd Thomas.  In the days since the report, with the upcoming shoot of The Mortal Instruments to still fresh on her mind, Collins was cast as Snow White in The Brothers Grimm: Snow White. And so director Stephen Sommers (G.I. Joe) must look elsewhere for his Stormy Llewellyn.Variety reports that Addison Timlin (Californication) has emerged from a shortlist that also includes Emma Roberts, Kat Dennings, and Portia Doubleday in addition to Collins.  Stormy is the girlfriend of the titular Thomas (Anton Yelchin), “a short-order cook with clairvoyant abilities who encounters a mysterious man with a link to dark, threatening forces.”  The story is set in a California desert town; Odd Thomas will shoot in Santa Fe, New Mexico with a May 2 start date.  Read the book synopsis after the jump.odd-thomas-book-cover-01

“The dead don’t talk. I don’t know why.” But they do try to communicate, with a short-order cook in a small desert town serving as their reluctant confidant. Odd Thomas thinks of himself as an ordinary guy, if possessed of a certain measure of talent at the Pico Mundo Grill and rapturously in love with the most beautiful girl in the world, Stormy Llewellyn. Maybe he has a gift, maybe it’s a curse, Odd has never been sure, but he tries to do his best by the silent souls who seek him out.  Sometimes they want justice, and Odd’s otherworldly tips to Pico Mundo’s sympathetic police chief, Wyatt Porter, can solve a crime. Occasionally they can prevent one. But this time it’s different.

A mysterious man comes to town with a voracious appetite, a filing cabinet stuffed with information on the world’s worst killers, and a pack of hyena-like shades following him wherever he goes. Who the man is and what he wants, not even Odd’s deceased informants can tell him. His most ominous clue is a page ripped from a day-by-day calendar for August 15.

Today is August 14.

In less than twenty-four hours, Pico Mundo will awaken to a day of catastrophe. As evil coils under the searing desert sun, Odd travels through the shifting prisms of his world, struggling to avert a looming cataclysm with the aid of his soul mate and an unlikely community of allies that includes the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. His account of two shattering days when past and present, fate and destiny converge is the stuff of our worst nightmares—and a testament by which to live: sanely if not safely, with courage, humor, and a full heart that even in the darkness must persevere. [Amazon]