Some casting info, including news that should make fans of Sean Bean very happy.  Here it is in brief:

• Sean Bean (Game of Thrones) will star in the three-film adaptation of Devil's Peak, a suspense novel trilogy by South African author, Deon Meyer.
• Paula Patton (Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol) is set to star in Baggage Claim, a comedy adapted and directed by David Talbert from his bestselling 2003 novel.
• Jamie Hector (The Wire) joins the phenomenal cast of Blood Ties, which includes Mila Kunis (Black Swan) , Zoe Saldana (Colombiana) and Marion Cotillard (Inception).

Hit the jump for more on each film.

First up from THR comes the awesome news that Bean will star in recurring lead role, Detective Benny Griessel.  Did you catch the operative word, "recurring?" As in, for at least two movies, he won't die from being shot, stabbed, beheaded, shot full of arrows (and then beheaded), pulled limb from limb by a team of horses or stampeded off a cliff (my favorite).  The trilogy, said to be based on "revenge, forgiveness and the race to catch a trained killer," will start with Devil's Peak, followed by 13 Hours and 7 Days. Set to shoot in Meyer's native South Africa in September, producer Malcolm Kohll said:

“I believe that Deon Meyer will do for the South African thriller what Stieg Larsson did for the Scandinavian crime novel.”

Here's the synopsis for Devil's Peak (via Amazon):

A young woman makes a terrible confession to a priest. An honorable man takes his own revenge for an unspeakable tragedy. An aging inspector tries to get himself sober while taking on the most difficult case of his career. From

this beginning, Deon Meyer weaves a story of astonishing complexity and suspense, as Inspector Benny Griessel faces off against a dangerous vigilante who has everything on his side, including public sympathy.

A gruesome abuse case has hit the newsstands, and one man has taken it upon himself to stand up for the children of Cape Town. When the accused is found stabbed through the heart by spear, it's only the beginning of a string of bloody murders - and of a dangerous dilemma for detective Griessel. The detective is always just one step behind as someone slays the city's killers. But the paths of Griessel and the avenger collide when a young prostitute lures them both into a dangerous plan - and the two find themselves with a heart-stopping problem that no system of justice could ever make right.

Deadline reports that Patton will star as Montana Moore, a 35-year-old flight attendant who is the oldest woman in her family who is still single.  As her sister is next to tie the knot, Moore's fellow flight attendants set a limit of 30 days or 30,000 miles to find her a husband.  Baggage Claim will be Talbert's second time behind the camera when production starts this September.  His previous effort, First Sunday, was based off of one of his plays, of which he's been writing and touring with for 20 years. Baggage Claim could prove to be his big screen breakthrough.  Here's the synopsis (via Amazon):

She's got thirty days and thirty thousand miles to find a husband.

According to the women in Montana Moore's family, you're not a lady until you marry and not a woman until you have birthed at least two children. At age thirty-five, Montana is neither and her prospects are meager. Her mother is working on husband number five, and her baby sister, Sheree, has just announced her engagement to a promising future doctor. Pledging to keep herself from being the oldest and the only woman in her entire family never to wed, Montana embarks on a thirty-day, thirty-thousand-mile expedition to charm a potential suitor into becoming her fiancé.

Whom will she choose? Damon Diesel, a P. Diddy wannabe; Reverend Curtis P. Merewether, pastor of Greater House of Deliverance, Tabernacle of Praise, Worship, and Miracles; pompous attorney-turned-councilman Langston Jefferson Battle III; or Quinton Jamison, a multimillionaire who's twenty years her senior?

Last, but certainly not least, comes the addition of Hector for Blood Ties, a crime thriller directed by Guillaume Canet (Tell No One) currently shooting in New York.  The plot centers on two brothers on opposite sides of the law who square off over organized crime in 1970s Brooklyn.  In addition to Kunis, Saldana and Cotillard, Clive Owen and Billy Crudup are set to lead as “a younger brother (Crudup) who has to ask his convict older brother (Owen) to go back into the underworld to help out the family.”  Canet's English-language debut is based off the French novel "Les liens du sang."