Daniel Radcliffe’s current career trajectory is screaming, “I will not be Harry Potter forever!”  The actor has been taking on an admirable diversity of roles ever since hanging up his wand last year.  Earlier this year, he starred in the gothic horror flick The Woman in Black, he’s playing Allen Ginsberg in Kill Your Darlings, and several days ago we reported that he would lead the supernatural fantasy-thriller, Horns.

Today, Variety reports that Radcliffe is adding an indie romantic comedy to his slate by signing on to star opposite Zoe Kazan (Ruby Sparks) in The F Word.  Michael Dowse (Goon) will direct from a Black List script by Elan Mastai (The Samaritan), which has “Radcliffe venturing to be the first male to have a successfully platonic relationship with a girl he likes (Kazan), only to find out she’s already in a relationship.”  I have no idea what this means because I’m not exactly sure how the story is measuring success.  Is he trying to escape from the friend zone?  Is he trying to be at peace living in the friend zone?  Damn you and your vagueness, loglines.  Damn you to hell.

Tom Wilkinson is set to join Samuel L. Jackson in The Samaritan, an independent thriller directed by David Weaver.  Jackson stars as a former grifter who, when released from prison after a 20-year sentence, wants to live as a law-abiding citizen: “Complications arise when the son of his former partner asks him for help with an ingenious plan.”  Variety reports Wilkinson will play a crime boss who “becomes ensnared in a grift with far-reaching consequences.”  Luke Kirby and Ruth Negga also star.

Weaver co-wrote the script with Elan Mastai (Alone in the Dark).  The Samaritan is currently filming in Toronto before transporting to Rio de Janiero later this month.  Anonymous Content is targeting an early 2012 release.

True Blood creator Alan Ball will return to the big screen soon, as he’s just been set to direct a dark comedy written by Elan Mastai (Alone in the Dark).  Risky Business reports that Ball developed the idea with Mastai and they recently pitched the project to Paramount.  Ball will also produce the film through his Your Face Goes Here Entertainment production company.

This will be Ball’s second feature film directorial effort, after his debut with 2007’s Towelhead. He won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for writing 1999’s American Beauty, and is currently enjoying a wildly successful run as showrunner on HBO’s hit TV series True Blood.  He also recently made a deal with HBO to develop another series, this one an adaptation of the Charlie Huston crime novel The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death.  Ball is set to begin filming season four of True Blood in the coming months, with the show returning to HBO airwaves next summer.