Casting News: Jeremy Renner is King of Heists; Jason Bateman and Olivia Wilde's Longest Week; R.I.P.D. Adds New Spirit
Posted 09.21.11 by Ryan
After receiving Academy Award nominations for both The Hurt Locker and The Town, actor Jeremy Renner has been filling up his resume with high-profile roles in The Avengers, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters and Bourne Legacy. Renner's most recent role will see him return to the world of bank robbery he explored in The Town.
Deadline reports that Renner is attached to star in King of Heists, which the actor will also produce. Based on author J. North Conway non-fiction book of the same name, Renner will play architect George Leslie, who led a double life as a thief, assembling a crew of New York City's finest criminals and executing a number of heists — the most infamous being the one that netted nearly $3 million in cash and securities from the Manhattan Savings Institution in 1878.
Up-and-coming screenwriter Will Staples will adapt the script for the as-yet-unattached director. With King of Heists in early development, expect Renner to fit in a few more roles before the movie steps before cameras.
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Jason Bateman and
Olivia Wilde must have really enjoyed working together in this summer's
The Change-Up as they are about to work together again in the indie comedy
The Longest Week from writer-director
Peter Glanz (
The Trivial Pursuits of Arthur Banks).
According to Variety, the movie will follow Bateman as "a man who lives a life of leisure in his parents' prestigious Manhattan hotel," but, in the course of one week, "finds himself evicted, disinherited and in love." While that may sound like the plot to Arthur to you, we'd like to point out that Bateman isn't British. Big difference.
Bateman is also in negotiations to star in another indie titled Disconnect, this time from director Henry-Alex Rubin and co-starring Alexander Skarsgard (True Blood), Frank Grillo, Andrea Riseborough (Never Let Me Go), Colin Ford (Push) and Michael Nyqvist. We're sure that Wilde will find a role in that too at some point.
Disconnect follows an ensemble of characters who have their lives either affected or destroyed by the modern technology of communication and the Internet. Bateman is set to star as Ford's father.
Bateman will shoot both The Longest Week and Disconnect back-to-back through October and November.
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Universal's adaptation of R.I.P.D. is currently in production, as evidenced by the recent set photos, but they are still adding new cast members.THR reports that Robert Knepper, who played the villain in the TV shows Prison Break and Heroes, is the latest actor to be added to the cast.
Based on the Dark Horse comic book, R.I.P.D. follows Ryan Reynolds as a recently murdered police officer who decides to join the Rest in Peace Department (or R.I.P.D., get it?) in order to find the man who murdered him with the help of his partner, a gunslinger from the 1800s (Jeff Bridges). R.I.P.D. often battle spirits that aren't ready to leave this world, and Knepper is playing one such spirit or "deado" as they are referred to in the movie.
Knepper joins a cast that includes Mary-Louise Parker as the head of Reynolds division at R.I.P.D., Kevin Bacon as the movie's antagonist, Mike O'Malley as a kind of ghost named Elliot, and Stephanie Szostak (Dinner for Schmucks) as Reynolds' wife.
R.I.P.D. is scheduled for release on June 28, 2013, and is being directed by Robert Schwentke (RED).