Alex Pettyfer, star of failed franchise starter “I Am Number Four,” and Steven Soderbergh's upcoming "Magic Mike," has found a new starring role in the new film from “Heartbreaker” helmer Pascal Chaumeil. “Diamond Dogs” is based on an Alan Watt novel that is described as a crime thriller. Pettyfer will play the son of a Nevada sheriff who makes a life-changing mistake, and his father is forced to cover it up. Casting is currently underway for the father and no start date has been set. [Variety]
Meanwhile, Gwyneth Paltrow is in talks to co-star in the Carlos Saura (“Raise Ravens,” “The Hunt”) directed “Guernica 33 Days.” The film, co-written by Suara with Elias Querejeta, and Louis-Charles Sirjacq, will follow Pablo Picasso’s emotional turmoil as he painted the famous artwork referenced in the title.
Antonio Banderas stars as Picasso, and Paltrow would play his lover, a Spanish-speaking French photographer named Dora Maar. It shoots this fall in Guernica and France, once Paltrow has wrapped on "Iron Man 3," and will presumably start doing the festival rounds in 2013. [Variety]
Finally, Susan Sarandon is starring in the period-piece coming-of-age film, “Ping-Pong Summer.” The film, written and directed by Michael Tully (“Septien”), will take place during the summer of 1985 and follow a hip-hop and ping-pong obsessed teenage boy and family vacation that changes everything.
Sarandon has been taking on offbeat roles recently, mostly on low-rated television comedies (“The Big C,” “30 Rock”) and showing up in the Wachowski's and Tom Tykwer’s upcoming ambitious adaptation “Cloud Atlas,” which only makes excited for what this movie has to offer. Plus apparently, she's a big table-tennis fan herself, so there's that. Filming on “Ping-Pong Summer” starts this September in Maryland. [Deadline]