slice_water_for_elephants_christoph_waltz_01.jpg

Deadline reports that Christoph Waltz, who is due to receive an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor on March 7th, is joining Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson in Francis Lawrence's adaptation of Sara Gruen's novel Water for Elephants.  I had zero interest in this project before, but now I'm excited out of my mind for it, not just because I want to see more Waltz in movies, but because Mike Felming describes the characters as, "a dangerous paranoid schizophrenic animal trainer who is as mean to his wife (Witherspoon) as he is to the circus creatures."  The story follows a second-rate circus during the Depression.  Pattinson will play a veterinary medicine student who falls for the star performer/wife of the dangerous paranoid schizophrenic animal trainer.

We previously reported that Sean Penn was in talks to join the film, but his talks fizzled and so it now looks like Waltz will have the privilege of playing such an incredible-sounding role.