Even before Garry Marshall's ensemble rom-com Valentine's Day raked in over $200 million at box offices around the world, Warner Bros. and New Line had already made plans to celebrate New Year's Eve with the director and screenwriter Katherine Fugate.  Now, with a December 2011 release date looming, the romance anthology is attempting to amass another huge cast for its sophomore effort.  Reports surfacing today claim that talents such as Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Hilary Swank, and Ashton Kutcher are currently zeroing in on lead roles for the project.

According to THR, De Niro would play a "bitter, dying man in a hospital" while Pfeiffer is circling an executive secretary insistent on keeping those pesky resolutions.   As for Swank, she would portray a producer on a Times Square's "New Year's Eve" television extravaganza, with Kutcher eyeing the ultra-versatile role of the "guy who hates New Year's Eve."  In case you missed Valentine's Day earlier this year, New Year's Eve will follow a near identical plot structure in which several story lines, all set against the backdrop of a big city, eventually intersect in an effort to recreate something that resembles romance.  Glee's Lea Michele and Abigail Breslin have already joined the film, which is currently looking at shooting in New York this December.  There is no word yet on whether or not Jamie Foxx and/or George Lopez will be brought back to reprise their roles as the only male ethnic minorities to live in either New York or Los Angeles.