– Tim Pocock, who replaced James Marsden as Cyclops in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” and somehow managed to be even blander (don’t get us wrong, we like Marsden a lot, just not in the “X-Men” movies), wrote on his Twitter account a few days back “Currently shooting Australian TV series till February 2010… then X-men first class ;)”. This suggests that he’s been officially asked to reprise his role in the long-in-development script from Josh Schwartz (“The OC”, “Chuck”) following a number of the X-Men characters as teenagers. “X-Men: First Class” has always seemed like a best bet for the next film in the franchise, but it’s interesting to know it’s moving ahead – a shoot next year would make it likely for release in the summer of 2011, going up against “Spider-Man 4,” “Thor” and “Captain America.”
– Another sharp-eyed Twitter find came from Devin over at CHUD, who spotted an announcement from director Scott Stewart (the upcoming “Legion”) that Christopher Plummer and Brad Dourif have joined the cast of comic book adaptation “Priest,” which stars Paul Bettany as a warrior priest who goes rogue to track down the vampires who kidnapped his niece. The picture also stars Maggie Q, Karl Urban and vampire alumni Cam Gigandet (“Twilight”) and Stephen Moyer (“True Blood”), as well as Madchen Amick (“Californication”), who Variety announces will play the mother of the kidnapped girl.
– The new trailer for Chris Columbus’ Harry Potter-aping family adventure, and winner of the 2010 ‘Title Least Likely to Fit on the Marquee’ award, “Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief” has hit. The adaptation of a successful book series focuses on a boy who discovers his father is Poseidon, the god of the sea. The cast includes Pierce Brosnan, Steve Coogan, Uma Thurman, Catherine Keener and Sean Bean.
– Katey Rich over at Cinema Blend sat down with the great Bill Hader while he was promoting his new animated film “Cloudy With Chance Of Meatballs,” which opens today (and is apparently pretty good), and he talked up “Paul,” in which he plays an agent pursuing the title character (Seth Rogen), an alien hitching a ride with two comic book geeks (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost). It sounds like director Greg Mottola has gone for some interesting stylistic choices: “Greg has kind of changed up his whole style for that movie. It’s like an early Spielberg movie. I don’t think I was in a single shot where the camera wasn’t moving, which isn’t normal for Greg. Greg usually keeps the camera pretty still. But this movie is totally different.” Supposedly, the Spielberg influence is pretty heavy on the film, and Hader says the specific films drawn upon include not only, “”Close Encounters,” but a lot of “Sugarland Express” or “Duel,” there’s a lot of car stuff in it. And “E.T.” obviously, all into one big thing. The tone of that.” The script for this is pretty great, not quite on a par with “Hot Fuzz” and “Shaun of the Dead”, but pretty close, and Mottola’s choices sound perfect for the material.
– Paul Giamatti has officially signed on to the period action film “Ironclad,” which he’s been circling for over a year now. The independent film, which begins production in Britain in October, is about a group of Knights Templar defending a castle from the villainous King John (Giamatti), in 13th Century England. James Purefoy is confirmed to play the lead, and Jonathan English (“Minotaur”) will direct. Earlier in the year, the film was reported to have a pretty starry supporting cast, including Bob Hoskins, Robert Carlyle, Pete Postlethwaite, Richard Attenborough, William Moseley, Colm Meaney and Angus McFayden, but it’s unclear how many of these actors have remained attached as the film’s slipped.
– First Showing point us towards Quiet Earth, who have uncovered the trailer for Jay Baruchel-starrer “The Trotsky,” which looks fun, in a kind of Ferris Bueller/Rushmore hybrid sort-of-way. Curiously, though it doesn’t mention the film’s central conceit – that Baruchel’s character believes he’s the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky… You can also hear a track from ace Montreal indie band Malajube, who, as we revealed a little while back, are providing the score for the film.
