Casting News: Tom Wilkinson Joins The Lone Ranger; More Cast for Snow White and the Huntsman; Super 8's Joel Courtney Is Tom Sawyer
Posted 06.24.11 by Ryan
A good action movie needs a villain, which is why Tom Wilkinson (The Kennedys) is in talks to play one in The Lone Ranger, Variety reports. Reportedly, Wilkinson will play a railroad tycoon, and while the report doesn't exactly say that Wilkinson will play an antagonist, movie math tells us that "railroad tycoon" plus "Western genre" equals "villain." Not to mention, he's a British actor in a Western, which, again, means villain.
Armie Hammer (The Social Network) is set to play the title role. Johnny Depp, who has been attached to the project since 2008, will play Tonto, the Lone Ranger's faithful sidekick. Gore Verbinski (the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies) will direct from a "funny" script by Justin Haythe, who wrote the hilarious Revolutionary Road. Production will begin later this year on The Lone Ranger, which opens on December 21, 2012.
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The rivalry continues for 2012's two Snow White movies! While director Tarsem Singh is starting production on March 16's Untitled Snow White Project (formerly titled The Brothers Grimm: Snow White), Universal Studios' June 1 release of Snow White and the Huntsman continues to add cast members.
Earlier this week, Ray Winstone (The Departed) was cast as the dwarf Trajan, with Eddie Marsan (Sherlock Holmes) playing Trajan's twin, Hadrian. Stephen Graham (Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) is playing an angry-looking dwarf named Nero, while Eddie Izzard, Toby Jones, Bob Hoskins, and Ian McShane fill out the seven dwarfs, who are named after Roman emperors instead of character traits.
The casting deluge isn't over. Variety reports that Lily Cole (The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus) was also cast in the unexplained role of Greta, and Sam Spruell will play Finn, the Queen's Henchman. In the movie, the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) is unable to kill Snow White (Kristen Stewart), and instead teaches her to fight and survive. Finn is sent by the Queen (Charlize Theron) to kill them both. Production begins in late summer with newcomer Rupert Sanders at the helm.
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15-year-old Joel Courtney was cast in his first role in this summer's Super 8, and his second role will be a literary icon. Variety reports that Courtney has been cast as Tom Sawyer in Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn, an adaptation written and directed by European producer Jo Kastner and based on Mark Twain's classic novel.
The movie will start shooting this August in Bulgaria, perhaps because the resemblance between Missouri and Bulgaria is so strikingly similar, but more likely because the country offered significant tax credits to the production.