In today's casting news:

  • Benicio Del Toro is in final negotiations to join Emily Blunt in Denis Villeneuve’s thriller, Sicario.
  • Keanu Reeves is set to star in writer-director Eli Roth's psychological thriller Knock Knock.

Hit the jump for more on both projects.

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Image via Marvel Studios

First up from Variety is word that Del Toro is finalizing negotiations to join Sicario, a thriller that added Blunt just a couple of days ago.  She stars in the lead role of the Taylor Sheridan script as an officer from Tuscon who travels across the border to Mexico with a pair of mercenaries in order to track down a drug lord.  Villeneuve is expected to start production on the film this summer.  There's no word on just which part Del Toro would play in Sicario, but we do know that he's got roles in Guardians of the Galaxy, Paradise Lost, and Inherent Vice, all opening later this year.

Deadline reports that Reeves has signed on to star in Roth's Knock Knock.  Reeves will play "a happily married family man who’s home alone one weekend when two beautiful girls show up at his house, and turn his life upside down."  Lorenza Izzo (The Green Inferno) and Ana de Armas (Hands of Stone) will play the femme fatales.  Ignacia Allamand, also of The Green Inferno, plays Reeves’ wife.  Colleen Camp, who's a producer on the film, and Aaron Burns also star.   Here's what Roth had to say about the project:

“I had a window before I promote Green Inferno, and I wanted to make a movie like Roman Polanski or Paul Verhoeven made when they were young, a classic psychosexual thriller that’s not a horror movie, but would have everyone on the edge of their seats. Getting Keanu is amazing, he’s a fine actor who is perfect for this. I feel I can have this movie ready for Toronto if I need to, and he’s catching a plane tomorrow and we’ll be fitting him for wardrobe right away.”

Roth wrote the script along with Nicolas Lopez and Guillermo Amoedo.  They plan to start production on April 14th in Santiago, Chile.

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