Check out the latest casting news in brief below:

  • Imogen Poots (Fright Night) has been cast opposite Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad) in the Need for Speed adaptation directed by Scott Waugh (Act of Valor).
  • Mark Strong (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) will join Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge!) in Before I Go to Sleep, director Rowan Joffe's psychological thriller adapted from S.J. Watson's best-selling book.
  • Sarah Jessica Parker (Sex and the City) will star in in the indie coming-of-age drama, Mixtape, directed by Tom Vaughan (What Happens in Vegas).

Hit the jump for more info on each picture, plus the first poster and synopsis for Before I Go to Sleep.

Heat Vision reports that Poots is in talks to star in Need for Speed opposite Paul.  The DreamWorks' adaptation of the Electronic Arts racing game will be “rooted in the tradition of the great car-culture films of the '70s while being extremely faithful to the spirit of the video game franchise."  While little is known about Paul's role, Need for Speed will feature Poots as a stock car racer on the rise.  Her father bets his life's worth on her races, presumably leading to financial trouble.  George and John Gatins developed the story with the former writing the screenplay.

Variety reports that Jessica Parker will star in Mixtape, which centers on "12-year-old girl, raised by her aunt, who never knew her mother. She finds a mixtape that once belonged to her mom and accidentally destroys it, so she sets out to track down each of the obscure songs listed on the cassette."  (So the kid spends an hour-and-a-half on YouTube?)  Stacey Menear wrote the treatment, which won the 2009 American Zoetrope film contest and landed on the Black List that same year.

Variety also reports on Strong joining Kidman in Before I Go to Sleep.  The story follows a north London woman (Kidman) with reoccurring memory loss. Her husband convinces her to stay home as a result of a past trauma. Instead, she sneaks out to find a doctor (Strong) who advises her to record and play back her thoughts each day in hopes of recovering her memory. When that works, she realizes that the man sleeping next to her isn't her husband.  Strong will next be seen in Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty.

Here's the synopsis and poster for Before I Go to Sleep:

A woman unable to remember her life regains her memory and discovers that everything she thought was true is a lie.

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