Check out the latest casting news for the following pictures:

  • Ralph Fiennes (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2) is in talks to topline James Foley's fantasy drama-romance Sands.  The modestly-budgeted picture is a supernatural love story penned by novelist Renata Bovara.
  • Tuppence Middleton (Cleanskin) has joined the impressive cast of the Wachowski siblings' Jupiter Ascending in an unspecified role.
  • Danielle Bisutti (True Jackson, VP) has been added to the cast of James Wan's Insidious: Chapter 2 as Michelle, whose character details are being kept under wraps.  Insidious: Chapter 2 opens August 30th.

Hit the jump for more on each casting announcement.

Variety reports that Fiennes is in advanced negotiations to star in Sands.  The picture centers on a New York surgeon and his wife, who lands in a coma after a car accident.  Her untethered spirit travels to India, drawn to an imaginary man, but must decide between this spiritual love or returning to her husband who is desperate for her to regain consciousness.  Sands is expected to film in the last quarter of this year with filming in Toronto, Reunion Island and India.

Variety also reports that Middleton will join Jupiter Ascending, a picture that takes place when humans occupy the bottom rung of the evolutionary ladder and follows a woman targeted for assassination by the Queen of the Universe.  The film already stars Channing Tatum, Mila Kunis, Eddie Redmayne, Douglas Booth and Sean Bean, but Middleton's role has not yet been revealed.  The Warner Bros.-distributed sci-fi flick will begin production this spring.

Bisutti joins Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Lin Shaye and Ty Simpkins in Insidious: Chapter 2.  Principal cast members will reprise their roles in the film, which James Wan, who directed "the most profitable film of 2011" in Insidious, will direct from a script written by Leigh Whannell, who also wrote the first film.