While Sundance is currently teeming with celebs, agents, managers and more, all maxing out expense accounts, back in Hollywood, the grind continues, with actors and projects coming together. So here’s a rundown of what’s been happening in casting news the past few days…
Partying at Park City, Emile Hirsch let is slip that that he’d soon be working with Miles Teller. “A shout-out to Miles Teller!” he said to a packed room. “We’re going to be working together soon. He’s playing Dan Aykroyd in the Belushi movie.” Screenwriter Steve Conrad (“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty“) is penning and directing the movie about the late, great, comic actor with a spring production start in New York City on the schedule. Teller’s people cautioning that the actor hasn’t committed to the movie yet, and won’t make a decision until after he does press rounds for “That Awkward Moment” opening later this month, but Hirsch is certainly excited. And the pair as the Blues Brothers? Yeah, we’d pay to see that. [THR]
“The Wolf Of Wall Street” beauty Margot Robbie isn’t wasting a hot second in riding the wave of Martin Scorsese‘s film, signing up for two projects. First, she’ll star opposite Chris Pine and Chiwetel Ejiofor in “Z For Zachariah.” She presumably takes over the role once marked for Amanda Seyfried in the Craig Zobel (“Compliance“) directed film that follows Ann, a young woman who thinks she’s the lone survivor of a nuclear war, only to discover another living person, a scientist named Loomis. After that Robbie will swing to the jungles of “Tarzan” to play Jane, joining a cast that includes Alexander Skarsgard, Samuel L. Jackson and Christoph Waltz. David Yates is directing. [Deadline/The Wrap]
The always awesome Sam Rockwell will star in “The Eel,” in which he’ll play “an escaped convict who is ensnared in a plot by a corrupt sheriff to kidnap the young heiress to an oil fortune, complicating his quest for freedom.” Penned by Roberto Bentivegna, who will also direct, the script placed on the 2012 Black List. Kevin Walsh, Nax Faxon and Jim Rash — aka the guys behind “The Way, Way Back” — are producing, with lensing to get underway this fall. [Deadline]
Jean-Claude Van Damme has joined a very Jean-Claude Van Damme sounding movie entitled “Pound Of Flesh.” He’ll play “a man who rescues a woman in distress one night, only to wake up the next morning in a blood-soaked hotel bathtub without a kidney.” Uh oh. Joshua James penned the script, that has Ernie Barbarash (“Cube Zero,” “Stir Of Echoes: The Homecoming,” “Assassination Games“) directing, with production starting this spring in China. [THR]
Lastly, model/actress Cara Delevingne is being eyed for the lead role in a remake of Jack Cardiff‘s cult 1968 biker flick, “The Girl On The Motorcycle.” Alain Delon and Marianne Faithfull starred in the original about a married woman hitting the road on a motorcycle to see her lover. Some guy named Tao Ruspoli is directing this redo, but clearly, nothing will beat the original trailer. [Baz Bamigboye]