Some casting news for you today.  Here’s the pertinent info:

• Juliette Lewis (Natural Born Killers) has been cast in the starring role of The Days of Mary, a re-imagining of the Oscar-winning Federico Felllini film, Nights of Cabiria.
• Ashley Hinshaw (Chronicle) and Kim Shaw (She’s Out of My League) will play the wives of racecar drivers Don “The Snake” Prudhomme and Tom “The Mongoose” McEwan in Snake & Mongoose.

Hit the jump for more on each project.

We’ve got a couple of casting stories to report this afternoon.  First up, director Robert Rodriguez continues to fill out the cast for his sequel Machete Kills, and it appears that Amber Herd (The Rum Diary) will be taking on a femme fatale role.  Variety reports that Herd will play “a manipulative assassin code-named Miss San Antonio,” which I can only assume refers to her jaw-dropping beauty.  Dangerous beauty, apparently.  Danny Trejo is returning as the titular murderous Mexican, with Jessica Alba and Michelle Rodriguez reprising their roles from the first film as well.  As for newcomers, Mel Gibson and Demian Bichir are poised to join the franchise’s second outing.

Hit the jump for casting news regarding the drag-racing biopic Snake & Mongoose.

Stephen Nemeth and Robin Broidy have acquired the life-story rights to drag racing rivals Don “The Snake” Prudhomme and Tom “The Mongoose” McEwen for the feature biopic Snake and Mongoose.  McEwen initiated the rivalry in 1964 by adopting the complementary nickname “The Mongoose” to entice Prudhomme, already known as “The Snake,” into a high profile match race.  The duo revolutionized professional drag racing in 1970 when they set up their own Snake and Mongoose Hot Wheels at Mattel.  The toy company turned Hot Wheels, then just two years old, into the sport’s first major corporate sponsor.

Variety reports Wayne Holloway will direct from a script by Alan Paradise — Snake and Mongoose is the first feature credit for both Holloway, a commercial director, and Paradise.  As part of the deal, Nemeth and Broidy obtained access to archival footage from the National Hot Rod Association.