Casting News: Robert De Niro Replaces Nic Cage in Killing Season; Albert Finney Classes Up Bond 23; Sly Gets in The Tomb
Posted 10.31.11 by Ryan
Those who were hoping for a Face/Off reunion for Nicolas Cage and John Travolta had their hopes dashed when Cage dropped out of the wilderness action thriller Shrapnel in July, leaving Travolta and director John McTiernan (Die Hard, Predator) to find a replacement. Months later, McTiernan is out, the movie has a new title and Cage is being replaced by... Robert De Niro?
It's true. Deadline reports that De Niro is in for Cage, playing an American military veteran who is now living in a cabin in the woods. Enter Travolta as a friendly European tourist, who is a former Serbian soldier bent on revenge (Travolta finally gets to show off his Serbian accent). Once the truth is discovered, a one-on-one battle ensues. "We’ve never seen these two great actors on screen together before, and we’re excited to see what comes of the combination," said producer Avi Lerner (Drive Angry, The Expendables).
Now titled Killing Season, McTiernan has been replaced as well, with Mark Steven Johnson, whose directorial efforts include comic book duds Ghost Rider and Daredevil, and last year's romantic comedy When in Rome, taking the helm. Evan Daugherty (Snow White and the Huntsman) wrote the script for Killing Season, which will start shooting January 16.
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With
Javier Bardem finally
confirmed to play a villain in the upcoming sequel
James Bond 23 (working title), the rest of the cast is coming together.
The Daily Mail reports that director Sam Mendes gathered together his cast for a reading of the script and surprised them with the presence of actor Albert Finney, who will reportedly play "a Foreign Office mandarin with powers over the Secret Intelligence Service," a role of some size that could mean that Finney will be the boss of M (Judi Dench).
Finney joins a cast that already includes Daniel Craig as James Bond and Naomie Harris (28 Days Later, Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy) as Miss Moneypenny, but apparently will, in fact, include Ralph Fiennes, who has been rumored to be cast as a "darkly complex" villain. French model and actress Bérénice Marlohe will play the Bond Girl while Rory Kinnear will reprise his role from Quantum of Solace as Bill Tanner, M's chief of staff. Ben Whishaw (The Tempest) and Helen McCrory (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) have been cast in unspecified roles.
Shooting will begin this week on Bond 23, which is still without an official title. The sequel was rumored to be called Carte Blanche, but that was debunked. The latest rumored title is Skyfall, with The Playlist reporting that Sony was registering website domain names for the movie with Skyfall included in the site names. While the title is still unofficial, we have to ask: if Skyfall is a possibility, is there any way to put Carte Blanche back in contention? Quantum of Solace was bad enough, wasn't it?
Whatever it inevitably ends up being called, Bond 23 opens on Nov. 9, 2012.
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Since the success of The Expendables, Sylvester Stallone has been working non-stop, shooting the action flick Bullet to the Head and the sequel The Expendables 2 right after. Apparently keen to keep working, Stallone has already lined up another role.
The Playlist reports that Stallone has landed the lead role in Summit Entertainment's The Tomb, and will play security expert Ray Breslin, who invents an inescapable, high-tech prison only to be framed for a crime and locked up in it himself. Not to ruin the movie in advance, but we have a feeling he'll figure a way out.
Stallone's Expendables 2 cast mates Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis were each offered the lead role before Stallone. Director Antoine Fuqua (Brooklyn's Finest) was attached to the movie, but isn't any longer, so the search is out for another now that Stallone is on board. Miles Chapman (Road House 2) wrote the initial screenplay, with Jason Keller (Machine Gun Preacher) performing a rewrite.