Here’s today’s casting news:

• Maggie Smith (Downton Abbey) and Kevin Kline (Dave) are set to star in My Old Lady, directorial debut of playwright and screenwriter Israel Horovitz.
• Benjamin Walker (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) is in talks to join Chris Hemsworth in Ron Howard’s In the Heart of the Sea.
• Lance Reddick (Fringe) has been cast in his first comedic lead for debut director Scot Armstrong’s Search Party.

Hit the jump for more on each casting announcement. 

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.

Ron Howard is all over this week, becoming attached to direct two fantasy adaptations: Neil Gaiman‘s The Graveyard Book and Israeli import All I’ve Got.  Before Howard launches into those worlds, though, he may first tackle a project more grounded in reality.  Vulture hears Howard is circling the adaptation of Nathaniel Philbri‘s In the Heart of the Sea, which could take precedence as his next project and shoot this fall with Warner Bros. financing.  Chris Hemsworth, per usual, is a major selling point.  Howard is now in post-production on Rush, a Formula One biopic led by Hemsworth, and Hemsworth is set to star in In the Heart of the Sea.  The 19th century drama follows the surviving crew who drifted for 90 days in the South Pacific after their whaleship was rammed and sunk by a sperm whale.  (That sperm whale went on to inspire Moby Dick.)

Howard has not yet committed, but you can see why the story and the star would attract him.  A period piece shot on the sea would likely be a massive undertaking, and if WB plays their cards right, a viable prestige picture come awards season.  Read the book synopsis after the jump.

Chris Hemsworth has already had a very busy year, and his schedule is showing no signs of slowing down.  After turns in The Cabin in the Woods, The Avengers, and Snow White and the Huntsman, Hemsworth has now become attached to the long-in-development adaptation of author Nathaniel Philbrick’s novel In the Heart of the Sea.  The book recounts the real life sea disaster of the whaleship Essex, a harrowing ordeal that inspired Herman Melvilee’s Moby Dick.  In 1819, the ship was rammed by an angry sperm whale in the South Pacific.  The surviving crew drifted for 90 days in three tiny whaleboats and encountered disease, hunger, and eventually cannibalism.  Hit the jump for more, including a synopsis of the book.