We’ve got a few casting stories to attend to this afternoon.  Briefly:

  • Rebel Wilson has joined the cast of the new Sacha Baron Cohen comedy Grimsby.
  • Guy Pearce will reunite with Breathe In director Drake Doremus on the sci-fi film Equals, also starring Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult.
  • Brian Cox has joined the cast of Adam Sandler’s video game actioner Pixels.
  • Alessandro Nivola (American Hustle) has been added to the civil rights drama Selma.

Hit the jump for more details on the aforementioned casting. 

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Firstly, director Louis Leterrier (The Incredible Hulk) continues to fill out the cast for the action-comedy Grimsby, as Variety reports that Rebel Wilson has signed on.  Mark Strong leads the pic as a black ops spy who is forced to team up with his idiotic hooligan brother, played by Sacha Baron Cohen.  Details regarding Wilson’s role are unknown, but the prospect of seeing the actress go toe-to-toe with Cohen is rather exciting.  Filming begins this summer, after Wilson wraps the sequel Pitch Perfect 2, and Grimsby is slated for release on July 31, 2015.

Additionally, Guy Pearce has joined the cast of Like Crazy director Drake Doremus’ sci-fi pic Equals.  Pearce previously worked with Doremus on his last film, the excellent drama Breathe In, and now Variety reports that he’ll be joining Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult in the sci-fi indie.  The film takes place “in a world where there is no greed, no poverty, no violence, and no emotion.  But a new disease is threatening everyone: SOS, or Switched-On-Syndrome, activating depression, sensitivity, fear, love—and once a person is overtaken, they are sent away and never seen again.”  The pic has been described as a love story between Stewart and Hoult’s characters, and filming will begin this August in Japan and Singapore.

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Additionally, THR reports that Brian Cox has joined the cast of director Christopher Columbus’ (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone) family adventure film Pixels.  Adam Sandler leads the pic as an 80s video game champion who is enlisted by the president (Kevin James) to help defeat an alien invasion that has modeled itself after popular arcade games.  Cox will play military heavyweight Admiral Porter, and he joins a cast that also includes Peter Dinklage, Josh Gad, and Michelle Monaghan.  The film is slated for release on May 15, 2015.

Finally, THR reports that actor Alessandro Nivola is the latest to join the cast of director Ava DuVernay’s civil rights drama SelmaDavid Oyelowo plays Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the pic, which details three attempts of civil rights activiss to walk from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in order to gain voting rights.  The cast also includes Tom Wilkinson, Carmen Ejogo, and Oprah Winfrey.  Filming is currently underway in Atlanta, Montgomery, and Selma.