We've got a couple of casting stories for you this morning.  First up, Joel Edgerton has signed back on to play corrupt FBI Agent John Connolly in Scott Cooper's Black Mass.  The film stars Johnny Depp as notorious Boston gangster Whitey Bulger and centers on how he amassed his power with the help of his childhood friend Connolly by turning informant on rival operations, and then being warned by Connolly when the feds were closing in.  Edgerton signed on almost a year ago, and remained when Depp dropped out, but eventually left the project as well.  Depp signed back on three weeks ago, and there was the possibility of Tom Hardy playing the Connolly role, but now Deadline reports that the part is Edgerton's again.  Production is set to begin in two months in Boston, and Warner Bros. is eyeing an October 2015 release. [Update: Deadline adds that, since WB has picked up Black Mass, it has dropped Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's planned Whitey Bulger film, which was to star Damon and be directed by Affleck and just had a new draft of the script turned in by Terrence Winter.]

Hit the jump for the first word on Todd Strauss-Schulson's The Final Girls in over two years.

Back in 2011, we reported that A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas director Todd Strauss-Schulson was set to direct Final Girls.  At the time, the premise was described as a mix between Back to the Future and Friday the 13th, and the plot centered on a young girl who was mourning the loss of her mother, who was a famous 1980s scream queen.  “When she and her friends are mysteriously sucked into the world of her mother’s most famous horror movie, Max is reunited with her mom and must face the pic’s crazed killer.”

According to Screen Daily, Malin Akerman (Watchmen) and Taissa Farmiga (American Horror Story) are set to play the mother and daughter, respectively, and Strauss-Schulson is still attached to direct.  Production is set to begin in Louisiana in April.

I'm a big fan of Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, and I'm surprised that Strauss-Schulson has kept to TV since then, but I'm glad he'll be returning for a feature film, especially one that has such a fun premise.