McShane’s a Dwarf, Open Road Picks Up Meyer’s ‘The Host’ and Bay Outs Fox

This morning’s dose of Movie Morsels brings another layer to the Megan Fox vs. Michael Bay scuffle, our first dwarf in that other Snow White film, a Venice opener and more talk of Darren Aronofsky’s Noah… let’s have a look.

Ian McShane (Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) is the first actor to sign on to play one of the dwarfs in Snow White and Huntsman for first time director Rupert Sanders. The film is set for a June 1, 2012 release date and is described as a revisionist take on the fairy tale and features Snow White (Kristen Stewart) as a princess who escapes her evil stepmother (Charlize Theron) with the help of a huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) who was to have killed her but now trains the princess to survive and fight back. McShane will play Caesar, the leader of the dwarfs. [Heat Vision]

Freshman distributor Open Road recently acquired distribution rights to The Killer Elite and has now landed their second deal and it has a lot of blockbuster potential based on name alone. They’ve scored rights to the Andrew Niccol-directed adaptation of “Twilight” author Stephenie Meyer‘s The Host. The film will star Saoirse Ronan (Hanna) in the lead role as Melanie Stryder. The film is a love story set in the near future on Earth, which has been assimilated by an alien species that call themselves “Souls.” [Deadline]

Darren Aronofsky spoke briefly about his potential Noah project saying, “I want to make a big event film, and I think [Noah] can be that.” The potential biblical epic comes with a reported $130 million price tag and regarding those details Aronofsky added, “I don’t think it’s a very religious story. I think it’s a great fable that’s part of so many different religions and spiritual practices. I just think it’s a great story that’s never been on film.” Christian Bale (The Dark Knight Rises) has been rumored as a potential lead and for much more on the film click here. [IFC News]

The George Clooney-directed The Ides of March is set to hit theaters on October 7, but it will first premiere on August 31 at the Venice Film Festival as the fest’s opening film. [Deadline]

Back in 2009 Megan Fox was being interviewed during her press tour for Jennifer’s Body and when asked about her Transformers director, Michael Bay, she said, “He wants to be like Hitler on his sets, and he is.” In March 2010 it was reported Fox would not be asked back to reprise her role in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Reasons were speculated and in a recent interview co-star Shia LaBeouf said it was basically too much girl power.

Well, Bay has now weighed in and said, in almost what sounds like an aside, “[You] know, the Hitler thing. [Transformers producer] Steven [Spielberg] said, ‘Fire her right now.'” Hard to tell whom to believe eh? [GQ]

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