We’ve got a few interesting casting stories to share today.  Briefly:

• Sean Penn is in talks to join the increasingly impressive cast of director Paul Thomas Anderson’s next film, Inherent Vice.
• Looking to expand outside of the Marvel world, Chris Evans is eyeing a starring role in the Stephen King adaptation The Ten O’Clock People.
• Li Bingbing (Resident Evil: Retribution) is the first Chinese actress to join the cast of Michael Bay’s sequel Transformers 4, which will feature a host of Chinese stars.

Hit the jump for more on each project.

The forced theme of tonight’s casting report is One Word In The Title Causes Destruction:

• Ewan McGregor is in negotiations to play the villain in Jane Got a Gun, directed by Gavin O’Connor (Warrior).  Natalie Portman, Joel Edgerton, and Noah Emmerich co-star.
• Benicio del Toro is in talks to join Joaquin Phoenix in Paul Thomas Anderson‘s adaptation of the Thomas Pynchon novel Inherent Vice.
  
• Michael Bay cast Sophia Myles (Tristan + Isolde) in Transformers 4.  Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz, Jack Reynor, and Kelsey Grammer co-star.

Hit the jump for more on each project.

Kelsey Grammer (Frasier) is more than meets the eye as the new – and quite human – antagonist for Michael Bay’s Transformers 4.  Not too much is known about his character except that he’ll be playing counter-intelligence operative Harold Attinger – a flesh-and-blood baddie – and not a voice of any villainous Decepticons.  Grammer will join Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, Nicola Peltz and Jack Reynor in a story that centers on “a group of powerful, ingenious businessman and scientists [who] attempt to learn from past Transformer incursions and push the boundaries of technology beyond what they can control—all while an ancient, powerful Transformer menace sets Earth in his crosshairs.”  Transformers 4 opens June 27, 2014.  Hit the jump for more.

Opening this weekend is director Michael Bay’s fantastic dark comedy Pain & Gain.  The film is based on a crazy true story and stars Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson as two bodybuilders who get caught up in an extortion ring and kidnapping scheme that goes terribly wrong.  Pain and Gain also stars Anthony Mackie, Rebel Wilson,  Tony Shalhoub, Ed Harris, Rob Corddry, Ken Jeong, and Bar Paly.  For more on the film, watch some clips or the red-band trailer.

Recently, I landed an exclusive phone interview with Johnson  and Wahlberg.  We talked about how the craziest stuff is true, the way they prepared for the role, whether they were nervous to play these characters, collaborating with Michael Bay, future projects like Ted 2, Hercules, G.I. Joe 3, and more.   In addition, I asked Wahlberg if we can get Johnson walking around in the background of Transformers 4 so that there can eventually be a G.I. Joe/Transformers movie.  Hit the jump for what they had to say.

Michael Bay is delivering the news tonight at CinemaCon.  Bay revealed to Steve that he will shoot the big showcase scenes in Transformers 4 with the new, smaller IMAX 3D digital camera.  Now, at Paramount’s CinemaCon presentation, Bay announced Stanley Tucci will join the cast.  Tucci is the fourth confirmed cast member alongside Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz, and Jack Reynor.  As with virtually every movie, Tucci is a great addition.

The most recent synopsis says the sequel centers follows “a group of powerful, ingenious businessman and scientists [who] attempt to learn from past Transformer incursions and push the boundaries of technology beyond what they can control—all while an ancient, powerful Transformer menace sets Earth in his crosshairs.”  Transformers 4 opens June 27, 2014.  Hit the jump for more.

While IMAX delivers an amazing, immersive experience in movie theaters, the cameras are awfully difficult to use.  The problems are numerous: they’re huge, they weigh a lot, it costs a lot more for the film stock, and they’re so loud that any dialogue sequence has to be redone in post production.  So while the end production is amazing, only selected filmmakers get to play with the format (J.J. Abrams, Michael Bay, Christopher Nolan).

However…that might be about to change.

Over the last few years, IMAX has been quietly developing a smaller digital camera with amazing resolution.  And while that would be great on its own…the new camera would also shoot in 3D!  However, since no one had been talking about it recently, I figured IMAX was stuck trying to get the tech to work and it’d be years before we’d see it in action.  I thought wrong.  Tonight on the CinemaCon red carpet for Paramount’s presentation, Michael Bay told me he’s going to be shooting the big showcase scenes in Transformers 4 with the new, smaller IMAX 3D digital camera!  Hit the jump for more.

Christopher Nolan shot 28 minutes of The Dark Knight with IMAX cameras.  He followed with 72 minutes of IMAX footage for The Dark Knight Rises.  We learned with the release date announcement that his next project, Interstellar, is destined for IMAX.  At CinemaCon tonight, Greg Foster, Chairman and President of IMAX Entertainment, revealed Nolan will shoot a significant portion of Interstellar with IMAX cameras.  I imagine Nolan wants to test the limits of the technology and film as much of this “heroic interstellar voyage to the furthest reaches of our scientific understanding” as possible in his ideal format.  We will see if he can push it to 100 minutes or more this time around and—fingers crossed—shoot an entire feature film in IMAX in the near future.

In addition, IMAX announced Michael Bay will shoot selected scenes in Transformers 4 in IMAX.  This is all part of Paramount’s five-picture deal with IMAX—the three remaining titles have yet to be announced.  Hit the jump for the press release with the details.

When director Michael Bay’s sequel Transformers 4 hits theaters next year, we’ll be seeing plenty of robot destruction overseas on the screen.  We learned last November that Paramount was hoping to partner with a Chinese production company on the tentpole and set a fair amount of the film’s action in the country in order to boost its box office prospects in the lucrative country.  It appears that plan has now come to fruition, as Paramount announced today that it is partnering with China Movie Channel and Jiaflix Enterprises on Transformers 4, with production set to take place in China and the film poised to feature a number of Chinese actors and actresses.  Hit the jump for more, including the full press release.

Casting news for two anticipated upcoming projects has been unveiled.  First up, Alcon Entertainment has announced that Kate Mara (House of Cards, American Horror Story) is joining the cast of longtime Christopher Nolan cinematographer Wally Pfister’s sci-fi project Transcendence.  The film stars Johnny Depp and is rumored to concern a scientist whose brain gets uploaded into a supercomputer, but confirmed plot details are being kept under tight wraps.  Mara’s role is unspecified, but she most recently did excellent work on Netflix’s fantastic original series House of Cards and should make a swell addition to the Transcendence cast.

Rebecca Hall and Paul Bettany are also poised to star in the film.  Kate’s sister Rooney Mara was previously considered for one of the pic’s lead roles that eventually went to Hall.  Nolan is executive producing the film alongside Emma Thomas and Aaron Ryder, with filming set to get underway soon.  Hit the jump for casting news concerning the female lead in Michael Bay’s Transformers 4.

The nationwide expansion of Harmony Korine‘s Spring Breakers meant that I had the opportunity to catch the film last night at my local theater. We’ll talk a more specifically about our coverage of the film after the jump. For now, I’d like to make a futile attempt at encapsulating my feelings on the pic in the next few sentences. There’s a lot to like about Breakers whether it be the performances (James Franco‘s especially), the music, the slick editing and use of foreshadowing, etc. Nevertheless, for me this isn’t a movie that I “liked” as much as it’s one I respect. It’s beautiful, surreal, challenging, abhorrent, and vapid all at the same time. In other words, it’s art.

I could go on for days about the pic but that’s not why we’re here. In this week’s Top 5 we’ll take a look at our Breakers coverage, some Transformers 4 plot details, Olympus Has Fallen interviews with Gerard Butler and Antoine Fuqua just to name a few, a new trailer and poster for Star Trek Into Darkness, and The Croods interviews with Nicolas Cage and more. As is standard, a brief recap and link to each awaits after the jump.

As Michael Bay gears up to direct yet another Transformers movie this year, some plot details for the fourth installment in the franchise have started to surface.  We know that Transformers 4 won’t include any of the human characters from the previous films (save for a possible Josh Duhamel cameo), with Mark Wahlberg leading the series’ new cast.  Bay also previously said that they’ve “redesigned everything” for the pic so they will be showcasing some shiny new toys robots.

Now a production notice from Michigan granting Transformers 4 permission to shoot in Detroit with a hefty tax incentive this spring has revealed some of the first solid plot details for the film.  Hit the jump to read on.

Although director Michael Bay is set to kick-off a whole new trilogy with Transformers 4, it looks like we might have one cross-over character from the original series.  Josh Duhamel, who played military man William Lennox in each of the three previous films, recently spoke with Bay, who was congratulating him on the new addition to his family.  Bay also mentioned the opportunity for Duhamel to play the one bit of connective character tissue that would bridge the old and new films by way of a cameo.  Hit the jump for more.

As part of the team nominated for Best Visual Effects at this year’s Academy Awards, Jeff White was the Visual Effects Supervisor at ILM on Marvel’s The Avengers, having worked on a little over 700 shots in the film.  After working as a Creature Technical Director on such films as Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith and Lemony Snicket’s: A Series of Unfortunate Events, White served as Digital Production Supervisor on Transformers, and then was elevated to Association Visual Effects Supervisor on the subsequent sequels Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon.

During this recent exclusive interview with Collider, Jeff White talked about how incredible the Oscar recognition is, which sequences ILM was involved with, collaborating with director Joss Whedon and Marvel, how he ended up working at ILM, and the shots that he’s most proud of pulling off.  He also talked about starting pre-production on Transformers 4, which he says has some really exciting stuff in it, his hopes to be involved with The Avengers 2, and what it’s been like to be involved with Transformers: The Ride, which is at Universal Studios Hollywood.  Check out what he had to say after the jump.

Director Michael Bay’s next film is a bit of a departure from the filmmaker’s recent mega-budget fare, as we’ll see him return to his Bad Boys sensibilities on the $20 million dark comedy Pain and Gain.  Explosions fans needn’t worry, though, as Bay is currently prepping his return to the Transformers franchise with the upcoming Transformers 4.  He roped in his Pain and Gain star Mark Wahlberg to front an all-new cast, and he recently confirmed that this will be the start of a new trilogy.  Now Bay has talked a bit more about the film, saying he’s going to be “starting off smaller” with Transformers 4 and teasing a complete redesign.  Hit the jump to see what he had to say.

Who needs press releases and studio announcements when you have Michael Bay?  The Transformers 4 director recently posted confirmation of the hiring of Jack Reynor (What Richard Did) as the second lead opposite Mark Wahlberg.  There was no mention of Reynor’s character details, but previous reports suggest he’ll be the racecar-driving boyfriend of Wahlberg’s daughter.  Bay also commented on the fourth installment of the Transformers franchise, saying it’s not a reboot, but a continuation of the story in a new trilogy.  He also gives a little bit of insight into the plot.  Hit the jump to read Bay’s comments on Reynor and Transformers 4.