We’ve got a few casting stories to share this evening.  Briefly:

• The very funny Bill Hader is in talks to star in the indie comedy Lawless, produced by Mike White and David Bernad.
• Hailee Steinfeld has been tapped to star opposite Sam Worthington in director Phillip Noyce’s thriller For the Dogs.
• Billy Crystal will lead the retirement community sex comedy Winter’s Discontent for director Frank Oz.
• Shameless star Jeremy Allen White has landed the lead in DreamWorks’ found-footage time travel film Glimmer.

Hit the jump for more on all of the aforementioned films.

Lionsgate has released the first trailer for director Gavin Hood’s anticipated adaptation of the Orson Scott Card novel Ender’s Game.  The film tells the story of Andrew “Ender” Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), a young boy sent away to Battle School to hone his military skills and, hopefully, save the world from an impending alien invasion.  I plan to read the book before I see the movie, but was someone who is unfamiliar with the material, nothing in this trailer really leaps out at me.  It feels like they’re pushing a Hunger Games-vibe (putting a heavy burden on young adults) plus a lot of CG.  Also, Harrison Ford sounds really bored even though his narration is about trying to save humanity from annihilation.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film also stars Hailee Steinfeld, Abigail Breslin, Viola Davis, Khylin Rhambo, Moises Arias, and Ben Kingsley.  Ender’s Game opens on November 1st.

From a football drama to an indie comedy and a futuristic thriller, here is your casting news of the day:

• Ellen Burstyn (Requiem for a Dream) and Josh Pence (The Social Network) have joined Kevin Costner and Jennifer Garner in the sports drama Draft Day.
• Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit) is set to star in the indie comedy Barely Lethal.
• Dylan O’Brien (The First Time) makes his break from Teen Wolf to take the leading role in the dyspotian thriller The Maze Runner.

Hit the jump for more details on each casting.

The first trailer for director Carlo Carlei’s adaptation of Romeo & Juliet has landed online.  Written by Julian Fellowes (Downton Abbey, Gosford Park), the film stars Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit) as Juliet and Douglas Booth (The Pillars of the Earth) as Romeo, with a rather impressive supporting cast that includes Paul Giamatti, Stellan Skarsgard, and Homeland’s Damian Lewis.  Carlei maintains the original setting of Shakespeare’s play and looks to be taking a rather classical approach to the storytelling.  Following a rather awkward opening with “movie trailer guy” reciting Shakespeare, the clip sufficiently teases the romantic and intense aspects of Shakespeare’s source material.  However, with a story that’s been told countless times, it’s tough to be excited by a new adaptation unless its told in an original or interesting fashion.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film also stars Ed Westwick, Kodi Smit-McPhee (Let Me In) and Natascha McElhone.  Romeo & Juliet is set for release in the U.K on July 26th, but a US distribution deal has yet to be made.

We’ve got casting news for every taste this evening. Here’s the latest:

• Noah Emmerich will be teaming up with Warrior director, Gavin O’Connor once again. This time for the production-troubled Western Jane Got a Gun.

• Tom Holland (The Impossible) has joined the ensemble of Ron Howard’s whaling drama In The Heart Of The Sea.

• Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit) is ready for another frontier round, as she joins the cast of Tommy Lee Jones’ The Homesman.

Hit the jump for more details on each casting.

A new image has been released from Gavin Hood‘s adaptation of Orson Scott Card‘s Ender’s Game.  The film tells the story of Andrew “Ender” Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), a young boy sent away to Battle School to hone his military skills and, hopefully, save the world from an impending alien invasion.  The new image provides the first look at Hailee Steinfeld, who plays Petra Arkanian, the only girl in the Salamander Army, who befriends Ender.  Also, in the background you can see Khylin Rhambo as Dink Meeker (right, next to Ender), and Moises Arias as Bonzo Madrid (end of the table on the left).

Hit the jump to check out the full image.  The film also stars Ben Kingsley, Viola Davis, Abigail Breslin, and Harrison Ford.  Ender’s Game opens November 1st. [Update: We've updated the article with the high-resolution version of the image.]

We have a couple of quick casting stories for you this morning.  First up, I’m pleased to report that Kasi Lemmons‘ gospel musical Black Nativity has finally found a lead actor by casting Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker.  As we previously reported, both Samuel L. Jackson and Lawrence Fishburne passed on the movie, which follows a young black teen who spends Christmas with his estranged grandparents.  Through his grandfather’s Christmas Eve sermon and a stylized, dream-sequence retelling of the classic Nativity story, he learns about the importance of faith and family.  According to Blackfilm, “Whitaker is expected to play multiple characters during the Nativity sequence.”  Angela Bassett will play the boy’s grandmother, and Jennifer Hudson will play the mother.  As a big fan of Lemmons’ last film, Talk to Me, I’m glad that production is set to begin in January 2013.

Hit the jump for casting news on McG‘s action film starring Kevin Costner.

A trio of talented actresses has been set for the period drama The Keeping Room.  It was announced today that Olivia Wilde, Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit), and Nicole Beharie (Shame) will lead the film, which takes place towards the end of the Civil War and centers on three southern women—two sisters and one African American slave—who are forced to defend their home against an onslaught of soldiers who have broken off from the approaching Union Army.  Daniel Barber (Harry Brown) will direct from a script by Julia Hart.

It’s pretty great to see a period film dealing with this heady subject matter being fronted by three strong female actresses, and I’m excited to see how the full film plays out.  Wilde has become increasingly prolific as of late, Steinfeld was nominated for an Oscar for her work in 2010’s True Grit, and Beharie had a brief yet scene-stealing performance opposite Michael Fassbender in last year’s drama Shame. Production on The Keeping Room is slated to begin in March in North Carolina.  Hit the jump to read the full press release.

Quite the cast has been assembled for Return writer/director Liza Johnson’s indie dramedy, Hateship, Friendship, one that includes Kristen Wiig (Bridesmaids), Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit), Guy Pearce (Prometheus) and Nick Nolte (Warrior).  The picture is an adaptation of Alice Munro’s 2002 novel, “Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage.”  Written for the screen by Mark Poirier (Goats), Hateship, Friendship centers on a woman (Wiig) hired to care for a wild teenage girl (Steinfeld), who then sets up a romance between the nanny and her own estranged father (Pearce), a recovering addict living in another town.  Nolte will play the grandfather who blames Pearce’s character for the death of the girl’s mother.  Hit the jump for more.

For a project that has the epic scope of Ender’s Game, it’s only fitting that the film be released in IMAX.  Fans can look forward to seeing the adaptation of the beloved Orson Scott Card novel in IMAX format when it debuts in theaters November 1st, 2013.  The sci-fi film from director Gavin Hood (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) follows Andrew “Ender” Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), a boy trained at a military battle school in the hopes that he’ll develop a strategy to defeat the alien menace known as the Formics.  This will make two big features for Lionsgate being released in the same month (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire releases November 22nd), two properties the studio hopes will continue to bear box-office fruit.  But before Catching Fire can sweep Ender’s Game aside, the sci-fi film will have three weeks to build up a big payday and, hopefully, a bigger following.  Hit the jump for more updates on Ender’s Game from the film’s production blog. 

The first images from Carlo Carlei‘s Romeo and Juliet have gone online.  The film retains the original setting of Shakespeare’s play, but the tone is aimed at wooing the Twilight crowd.   Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit) stars as Juliet, and Douglas Booth (The Pillars of the Earth) is her fair Romeo.  I’m not sure how Carlei plans to reconcile what’s arguably a “dated” setting with a modern attitude, but I like the look of the film, I’m eager to see Steinfeld’s follow up to True Grit, and the great supporting cast includes Paul Giamatti, Stellan Skarsgard, Damian Lewis, and Natascha McElhone.  Bring on the star-crossed lovers.

Hit the jump to check out the images.  The movie currently has no U.S. release date, but it’s set to open in the U.K. on February 14, 2013.

You’re driving down the street, and it’s suddenly blocked off.  You notice these weird yellow signs with nonsensical letters or numbers.  There’s unusual glow lighting up a neighborhood you can’t usually see from your house.  What you might have here is a film company shooting in your town.  It happens a lot, and you never know where they might pop up…until now.

The following is a semi-comprehensive list of films currently shooting, what they’re shooting, and where they’re shooting.  We’ll be telling you where you might get to see the very famous, the kinda famous and (if all goes well) the soon-to-be famous. While we can’t list every single movie, television show, or student film in production, you’ll get a pretty good idea of what the heck is going on where all those people are buzzing about.  Want to know where in the world are Matt Damon, Harrison Ford, Sylvester Stallone, Woody Harrelson, and Leonardo DiCaprio? Hit the jump for more.

All the casting news that money can buy:

• Hailee Steinfeld is in negotiations to star in the high school comedy Why We Broke Up
• Matt LeBlanc will headline the indie rom-com Lovesick
• Scoot McNairy and Ruth Negga will join Chiwetel Ejiofor, Brad Pitt and Michael Fassbender Twelve Years a Slave

More on each project after the jump.

Harrison Ford reportedly called Ender’s Game, “one of the most emotional science fiction movies he has ever seen.”  If you’re a fan of Orson Scott Card’s award-winning novel, this article should let you breathe a little easier about the upcoming Gavin Hood adaptation.  While I was a bit leery about Hood’s attachment to my beloved property (see X-Men Origins: Wolverine), the Ender’s Game production blog has been shedding some interesting light on the filmmaker’s approach.  Hood and producer Roberto Orci (Star Trek) really seem to get the gist of the novel; that should elicit a sigh of relief followed quickly by a jolt of excitement from fans.  Orci recently participated in a Q&A on the blog in which he commented on the tone of the picture, the relationship between Colonel Hyrum Graff (Harrison Ford) and Ender (Asa Butterfield), as well as his favorite scenes.

Ender’s Game tells the story of Andrew “Ender” Wiggin, a young boy sent away to Battle School to hone his military skills and, hopefully, save the world from an impending alien invasion.  Also starring Abigail Breslin, Sir Ben Kingsley, Hailee Steinfeld, Nonso Anozie and Viola Davis, the picture opens November 1st, 2013.  We’ve also got some images from the production, so hit the jump to check it out!

Inventions dreamed up in science fiction novels have preempted the availability of practical technology numerous times (ie submarines, military drones, the internet); Ender’s Game is no exception.  Author Orson Scott Card wrote about multimedia tablets, the power held by the written word on the internet and electronic monitoring devices in his 1985 novel.  These things are, more or less, commonplace today.  So it’s fitting that these new images from the Ender’s Game film production show this technology not as obtrusive, but as practical.  One of the understated but necessary devices is “the monitor,” an implant that connects Andrew “Ender” Wiggin to his overseers.  We’ve got a first look at that piece of technology, as well as more images from the production for you to check out.  Ender’s Game, starring Asa Butterfield, Abigail Breslin, Harrison Ford and Sir Ben Kingsley and directed by Gavin Hood, opens November 1st, 2013.  Hit the jump to check out the new images.