Here's a bit more casting news for you today:

  • Melissa Leo and James Franco are set to star in Ian Olds' The Fixer.
  • Sophie Nelisse (The Book Thief) will star in the title role of The Great Gilly Hopkins for director Stephen Herek; Glenn Close, Kathy Bates, Danny Glover and Octavia Spencer also star.
  • Cuba Gooding Jr. will star in director and co-writer Allan Ungar's action thriller, Gridlocked.

Hit the jump for more on each picture

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First up from The Playlist is news of Leo and Franco in The Fixer.  The film follows "Osman, an Afghan journalist exiled from his war-torn country to a small bohemian community in Northern California. When he attempts to turn his menial job on the local police blotter into "Afghan-style" coverage of local crime, he gets drawn into the backwoods of this small town—a shadow Northern California where sex is casual, true friendship is hard to come by, and an unfamiliar form of violence bubbles up all around him."  The roles of Leo and Franco haven't been disclosed, and the title role has yet to be cast.

Variety reports on the casting of The Great Gilly Hopkins, an adaptation of Katherine Paterson's Newbery Award-winning young adult novel.  The story centers on "a wisecracking, gum-chewing 12-year-old (Nelisse), who is moved from foster home to foster home, outwitting them all. When she is placed in the home of Maime Trotter, the most unorthodox foster mom yet (Bates), Gilly battles her way out, but her life takes an unexpected turn."

News of Gooding Jr. in Gridlocked comes via The Wrap.  He'd star as "a former SWAT team leader who’s being shadowed by an arrogant movie star researching a role. When a team of mercenaries attacks a training facility, the unlikely duo must organize its survivor members and fight for their lives."