Now that Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don’t Cry) is set in the director’s chair, producers are working to cast the lead in the MGM/Screen Gems remake of Carrie. Vulture reports that a number of actresses have been shortlisted for the part (including Dakota Fanning and Lily Collins) but Chloe Moretz and Haley Bennett (Marley and Me) are apparently the top two candidates. The remake is said to be more faithful to Stephen King’s source material than Brian De Palma’s 1976 film adaptation, and apparently The Descendants star Shailene Woodley has already passed on the lead role. Hit the jump for more on the new Carrie.

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Bennett hasn’t toplined a film herself yet, but she’s been cast in one of two Terrence Malick films set to shoot this year (Lawless). I’m a huge fan of Moretz and think she’s one of the great young talents working at the moment, so it’d be nice to see her lead such a high profile project, especially with Peirce at the helm. The director is sure to bring a strong female protagonist to the screen and Moretz is a swell role model.

Vulture’s report notes that the director has approached Jodie Foster and is interested in Julianne Moore for the role of Carrie’s overbearing mother. Both would be fine choices, but Moore is coming off a powerhouse performance in Game Change and I’d love to see her tackle such a nutty character. The involvement of all these actors is I no way guaranteed, as none have moved into the negotiation phase. It’s possible that the lead could be someone entirely different than Moretz or Bennett, with Emily Browning (Sucker Punch) and Bella Heathcote (In Time) also included on the shortlist, but hopefully we'll hear something solid regarding casting soon. Read the synopsis for King’s novel below.

Stephen King’s legendary debut, about a teenage outcast and the revenge she enacts on her classmates.

Carrie White may have been unfashionable and unpopular, but she had a gift. Carrie could make things move by concentrating on them. A candle would fall. A door would lock. This was her power and her sin. Then, an act of kindness, as spontaneous as the vicious taunts of her classmates, offered Carrie a chance to be a normal and go to her senior prom. But another act–of ferocious cruelty–turned her gift into a weapon of horror and destruction that her classmates would never forget. [Amazon]