Opening next weekend is Will Ferrell’s Spanish language comedy Casa de mi Padre.  The film centers on Ferrell as Armando Alvarez, a Mexican rancher who must save his family’s farm while simultaneously fending off the drug lord, Onza, played by Gael Garcia Bernal (The Motorcycle Diaries) and winning the hand of the lovely Sonia, played by Genesis Rodriguez (Man on a Ledge).  As Dave said, to sum it up in just a few words: passion, adventure, intrigue, betrayal, sex, danger, romance, guns, cigarettes, special effects and slaps.  The film also stars Diego Luna, Efren Ramirez and Nick Offerman.  For more on the film, here’s fourteen clips and a fifteen-minute making of featurette.

The other day I got to speak with Genesis Rodriguez.  We talked about how she got involved in the project, the audition, improvising in Spanish, and the telenovella aspect of the film.  In addition, with Rodriguez just having working with Arnold Schwarzenegger in director Kim Ji-woon‘s Last Stand, she talked about who she played and promises Schwarzenegger “is doing it all again, the stunts, the taglines. You’re gonna get a lot more of those [taglines].”  Hit the jump to watch.

Since his days as president of production at Warner Bros., producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura had wanted to turn the script for Man on a Ledge into a film. He felt there was an inherent drama to the idea and saw it as a movie where things keep turning on themselves. There was something gripping about the idea of a man on a ledge and whether he was going to jump or not. What attracted him to the script was the potential for impending catastrophe and the possibility for a strong interactivity between the guy on the ledge and the people down below on the ground.

We sat down with di Bonaventura at a roundtable interview recently to talk about how he came aboard to help produce this film. He told us about the similarities Man on a Ledge shares with Red, why it’s dangerous to make movies that have disparate tones, why he would not have made the project without Sam Worthington, and why he enjoys making both smaller, intimate films like this and huge, spectacular films like Transformers. He also confirmed there will be a Red 2 and a Transformers 4, discussed his Arnold Schwarzenegger project, Last Stand, which South Korean director Jee-woon Kim is currently filming, and revealed his plans to make a Western with Bruce Willis entitled Five Against the Bullet.

A formidable foe has finally been chosen to square off against Arnold Schwarzenegger in his comeback project Last Stand. Variety reports that Eduardo Noriega (Blackthorn) has been cast as the villain in the action pic. The story centers on the sheriff of a sleepy border town who serves as the last line of defense against a drug cartel leader headed for the Mexican border. Noriega will play the cartel leader, fleeing to Mexico with $400 million in tow. Kim Jee-Woon is directing, and the cast includes Rodrigo Santoro, Peter Stormare, Zach Gilford and recent addition Jaimie Alexander.

Spanish actor Noriega’s resume includes Guillermo del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone and Alejandro Amenabar’s Open Your Eyes. Schwarzenegger is currently filming a stint in The Expendables 2, photographic evidence of which was tweeted earlier today showing Schwarzenegger standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis. Last Stand opens January 18th, 2013.

Jaimie Alexander, who played Sif in this summer’s Thor, has landed herself a prime role opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Governator’s comeback film The Last Stand. Directed by Kim Jee-Woon, the film centers on the Sheriff of a sleepy border town who is the only thing that stands in the way of a drug kingpin headed for Mexico. Variety reports that Alexander will play “a beautiful cop under Schwarzenegger’s command” who strikes up a romance with an officer played by Rodrigo Santoro. Peter Stormare and Zach Gilford also star in the pic, which is set to begin shooting later this month in Albuquerque. Alexander is expected to return for Thor 2. The Last Stand opens January 18th, 2013.

Hit the jump for casting news on the Ben Stiller comedy Neighborhood Watch.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plans to revitalize his acting career hit a snag when, to the surprise of no one, it was revealed he had a love child with his maid.  Projects like Terminator 5, Cry Macho, and The Governator fell by the wayside, but now Deadline is reporting that the ex-governor plans to “test his post-scandal popularity” with Kim Ji-Woon’s western The Last Stand.  This implies that Schwarzenegger had pre-scandal popularity and I seriously doubt that he did, or at least nowhere near as much as he had before he became governor.

We reported back in April that Schwarzenegger was in talks to play “a border sheriff who must keep an escaped drug dealer from crossing into Mexico.” A Lionsgate exec tells Deadline, “It’s an old-fashioned Western specifically designed for a 63-year-old broken-down guy with a moral decision whether Arnold decides to stand up for his town. We always needed an iconic figure for it.”  So it’s High Noon?  Actually, Ji-Woon (I Saw the Devil) previously said that it was a mix between Die Hard and High Noon, so that sounds good.   Last Stand is budget for $30 million and is expected to start shooting this September.