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Cecile de France, a Belgian actress, signed to star opposite Matt Damon in Clint Eastwood’s supernatural drama Hereafter.

Peter Morgan wrote the script that tells about three people who are touched by death in different ways. De France, whose credits include Russian Dolls and High Tension, will play a French journalist who has a near-death experience.

Eastwood started principal photography last month with filming taking place in San Francisco, London, Paris and Hawaii.

The film’s release date is set for December 2010.

Johnny Depp may join Angelina Jolie in The Tourist, a film that is experiencing many, many casting and directing changes – yet is set for production this February.   

If Depp joined Jolie, he would play an American tourist drawn into a web of intrigue and danger by a female Interpol agent (Jolie) as she attempts to locate a criminal who was once her lover.

You may be asking yourself, wait…I thought Sam Worthington was playing this part or Tom Cruise.  You’re thoughts are correct but changes happen in the film biz fast and furious.  Even Charlize Theron was attached to play Jolie’s part.

I am not sure about all the directors, but Alfonso Curaron is at the head of the line to take on this juicy and plum gig.

I like the idea of Depp and Jolie working together on a spy thriller. Don’t you?

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It looks like Chris Pine will fill the shoes of Jack Ryan from the Tom Clancy novels about the CIA analyst.  Paramount Pictures strongly feels having Pine on board will fire up the franchise, once again.

We all know Pine as James T. Kirk in Star Trek, the JJ Abrams-directed summer hit with a sequel on its way.

Pine is expected to come aboard the Jack Ryan film while the project gradually takes shape. The story is based on an original concept by Hossein Amini. The project is in deep development and it is unclear whether Pine would make another Star Trek before the Jack Ryan film.

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Hugh Jackman is setting his sights on Real Steel for DreamWorks with Shawn Levy to direct. Levy has quite a list of films under his belt: Big Fat Liar, The Pink Panther, and Night at the Museum and Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.

Real Steal is kind of like a retired Rocky meets 2000-pound human type robot.   Jackman would play an ex-fighter, who becomes a Robot Boxing promoter, but whose chances of success are hampered by his access to sub-standard robot parts. That is until he discovers a discarded robot that always seems to win. The ex-fighter has also discovered he’s the father of a 13-year old son, and they bond as the robot brawls its way toward the top.  

The studio would like to see a production start date in May 2010.

The idea of the movie came from a short story by Richard Matheson. If anyone knows Spielberg’s history of film, Matheson wrote Spielberg’s directing debut, the television movie Duel, and he was story editor on Spielberg’s Amazing Stories.

Matheson authored the book I am Legend, which was made into three movies. The last one starring Will Smtih with the same title. Matheson’s recent writing associations in the film business includes these movies: The Box, The Incredible Shrinking Man and Countdown.

No, seriously.  Really.   I don’t even know where you people get these rumors.

I’m faking that last bit of indignation, because frankly, I don’t know where it came from myself.  I hadn’t even heard Depp might possibly have been up for a role in the first place, and now I’ve got negative confirmation on it.  Well, I guess it could be worse…in fact, you know what?  Let’s  MAKE it worse.  Let’s take a run at our OWN outlandish Batman rumors.  How about:

The next Batman villain will be the Clock King, and he will be played by Wallace Shawn. That freaks me out just thinking about it, because a. Wallace Shawn would totally nail the part and b. no one cares about the Clock King in the first place.

Christian Bale out, Viggo Mortenson in. That one also gives me the creeps because it’s so very plausible.  But seriously, at this point, does anyone think they’re going to change horses midstream?

The next Batman installment will be a cartoon, and all the actors will be strictly voice actors.  Oh, come on–like that couldn’t happen?  They’d save vast quantities of money and still make huge bank opening weekend.  They could have Christian Bale stare at the walls for the first half of the movie and STILL make monster bank.  That’s the kind of force this franchise has now.

See?  This is just all kinds of fun!  Try making up your OWN outlandish Batman rumors and post them in the comments section.

A new hunk,Max Ryan, has arrived on the set of the currently filming sequel to Sex and the City. Kim Cattrall’s Samantha will be eyeing Ryan’s body. He will play a European architect named Rikard who crosses paths with Samantha.

Ryan is an English-born actor who recently appeared in Paul W.S. Anderson’s Death Race.

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Nicolas Cage cut himself loose from The Green Hornet. 

Last July before Comic-con 2009 we mentioned Cage was to play the villain in Columbia’s action movie, being directed by Michel Gondry.  THR reports the actor and the studio never came to terms on a deal.

The report makes sense because Cage is set to star in two movies back to back: The Hungry Rabbit Jumps and Drive Angry.  I couldn’t fathom how he was going to fit the Hornet in the production schedule.

Principal photograph of the Hornetbegan last week with Seth Rogen, Cameron Diaz and Jay Chou on the set in Los Angeles.

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With Director Steven Soderbergh’s Informant! opening at the Venice Film Festival with rave reviews, it’s no wonder he  has committed to next direct Knockout, a spy thriller. The will mark starring debut of Gina Carano, the mixed martial arts circuit fighter. 

Soderbergh is working toward a late January production start.

Knockout is written by Lem Dobbs (Kafka and The Limey), which casts Carano as a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who is given a second chance to use her skills for constructive purposes. My immediate thought was another Million Dollar Baby, but according to Variety, that is not the case. The movie will be more like La Femme Nikita and Kill Bill. No fighting rings just espionage, straight to the chase action film in the James Bond mold, shooting in locations around the world that include Ireland, Turkey and the U.S.

Robin Williams is attached to Wedding Banned, a romantic comedy still looking for a director.  The story sounds kind of funny or at least has the potential to be funny.  It’s about a long-divorced couple who decide their daughter is making the same mistakes they did and is marrying the wrong man. So, they make a decision to kidnap her on her wedding day to prevent her from making the same mistakes. The divorced parents rekindle their relationship as they elude cops and the angry groom.

Jack Amiel and Michael Begler wrote the script.

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Justin Theroux will be Zooey Deschanel’s villain in the movie Your Highness directed by David Gordon Green.

Theroux joins Danny McBride, James Franco, Natalie Portman and Zooey Deschanel  in the story that follows an arrogant, lazy prince (McBride) who must complete a mission to save his father’s kingdom. Theroux will play Leezar, an evil wizard with a bejeweled magical staff who kidnaps a princess (Deschanel).

The film, will shoot in Ireland, was written by Ben Best and McBride, who also is producing.

Theroux is a versatile artist who starred in a couple of television shows, and then directed Dedication, which I thought was a great independent movie. Next, he teamed up with Ben Stiller and Etan Cohen to write Tropic Thunder, and then worked on Iron Man 2.  Now, he is back in front of the camera with Highness.  I wonder if he’ll be doing rewrites on the set with McBride; it’s hard not to once you written a couple of scripts. Right Justin?

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