We have a few bits of casting news for you this morning.  First up, veteran actor Philip Baker Hall (Magnolia) has joined Mark Waters' (Mean Girls) family comedy Mr. Popper's Penguins.  Hall joins Jim Carrey who will star in the title role as a man who inherits six penguins which eventually help teach him valuable life lessons.  Both Carla Gugino and Ophelia Lovibond were recently cast in the film as Mr. Popper's wife and personal assistant respectively.  As for Hall, per TheWrap, he will play Franklin, "a deep-pocketed, no-nonsense investor who agrees to finance the Carrey's wacky schemes."  Penguins is currently in production in New York.  Hall plays alongside Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst in the upcoming film  All Good Things.  In spite of his prevalent acting career, he'll always be "Bookman" the Library cop from Seinfeld to me.

Hit the jump to read about Sanaa Lathan's (Love & Basketball) new role in Steven Soderbergh's Contagion.

According to Variety, Lathan will join Contagion's ensemble cast as Laurence Fishburne's wife.  As the story goes, Fishburne plays a doctor who tells Lathan of an epidemic which Lathan, in return, tells a friend about.  To make a long story short, word spreads fast and people get freaked out by the idea of a deadly virus killing all of mankind.

In addition to Lathan and Fishburne, Matt Damon, Jude Law, Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet, and Gwyneth Paltrow make up Contagion's all-star cast.  The film is currently shooting in Chicago and is slated for an October 21st, 2011 release.