Here's today's latest casting news:
- Nicolas Cage is potentially starring in Red Squad, a "DEA vs Mexican drug cartel" thriller that would be formerly incarcerated director John McTiernan's comeback film.
- Rachel Weisz is negotiating to join Robert De Niro and Robert Pattinson in Olivier Assayas' Idol's Eye, a Chicago-set gangster drama.
- Taylor Kinney is the latest addition to Barry Levinson's comedy Rock the Kasbah starring Bill Murray, as well as the indie political thriller, Food, from Zoey Lister Jones and Daryl Wein.
Hit the jump for more on each casting announcement.
In THR's write-up on McTiernan's legal issues, there's a small mention of Cage potentially starring in his next film. Red Squad centers on a former DEA agent with a rogue streak and his team of mercenaries who descend upon a Mexican border town in order to neutralize a drug lord. You can take a look at the film's poster here.
Variety reports that Weisz is in negotiations to join Idol's Eye. Just yesterday we reported on De Niro and Pattinson starring in the picture, but few details had emerged beyond the vague description of it being a “sophisticated” heist/action-thriller. "Previously titled “Hubris,” the project is based on a 2007 Playboy article called “Boosting The Big Tuna” by Hillel Levin. It follows a group of thieves who rob a man who turns out to be Chicago mafia boss Tony Accardo." Principal photography is scheduled to begin this October in Chicago and Toronto.
THR reports on a pair of pics for Kinney. First up is Rock the Kasbah, which also stars Bruce Willis, Zooey Deschanel, Kate Hudson, Scott Caan, Leem Lubany, and Danny McBride. The movie stars Murray as a has-been rock manager who takes his last remaining client on a USO tour of Afghanistan. When he finds himself in Kabul, abandoned, penniless and without his passport, he discovers a young girl with an extraordinary voice (Lubany) and manages her through Afghanistan’s version of American Idol, the wildly popular Afghan Star. Caan will play an ammo-dealing con man, who along with his partner (McBride) hustles Murray in war zone Kabul. Kinney will play "a soldier who escorts Murray and Deschanel around the country."
Food, co-written by Wein and Lister Jones with Wein directing, "is set in the world of Genetically Modified Organisms and centers on a single mother who goes on a journey to uncover the cause of her son's mysterious illness. Intertwined with her arc are the stories of a CEO grappling with his son's autism, an organic farmer in danger of losing his farm, and two scientists on the brink of a major discovery." Lister Jones also stars alongside Victor Garber, Kunal Nayyar, and Anthony Edwards.
