The Casting Couch: April 26, 2006

PARKER FILLS A VACANCY
Sarah Jessica Parker is set to star in Vacancy for Screen Gems with production expected to begin this fall. There was no director mentioned in the Variety article.

The story, written by Mark L. Smith, is about a couple who check into a motel and, unaware there’s a hidden camera, become the subjects of a snuff film. Parker will play the wife, who is still reeling from the death of her infant son.

SOURCE: Variety

WILL SMITH ON FOR I AM LEGEND
STILLER HAS THE SEVEN DAY ITCH
CRUISE/WAGNER WEIGH IN ON IRAQ WAR
JASON LEE IS UNDERDOG!
The animated pooch has his voice as “My Name is Earl” star Jason Lee, better known to me as Brodie Bruce/Banky Edwards from the Kevin Smith flicks, has been tapped to lend his voice for the title character of Underdog: The Movie for Spyglass Entertainment and Walt Disney Pictures.

The pic will be a live-action adaptation of the classic 1960s cartoon with an obvious CGI Underdog as it follows the humble dog named Shoeshine Boy who became the rhyming superheroic Underdog. In the movie, he is adopted by a 12-year-old boy and uses his superpower to protect his love, Polly Purebred, and the citizens of Capitol City from the evil Simon Barsinister (Peter Dinklage).

Lee’s last animated character was seen by quite a few folks as he voice Incredibles baddie Syndrome and he will also be lending his voice to Columbia Pictures’ Monster House due out this summer.

On a side note, the Hollywood Reporter article also mentions that Lee will be directing a short film that he wrote. The silent love story, which he will shoot this month, stars Giovanni Ribisi and Beth Riesgraf and will be produced by Lee, Riesgraf and Scott Martin for Lee’s production company, niva films.

SOURCE: The Hollywood Reporter

FIVE MORE SET TO KILL ME
MASTERSON AT THE HELM
Mary Stuart Masterson is set to make her directing debut with a little indie flick called The Cake Eaters, described by Production Weekly as an offbeat comic drama scripted by and starring Jayce Bartok. The film is scheduled to shoot in New York next month. Set in small-town America over the course of two days, the contemporary tale centers on two dysfunctional families thrown together by the return of one family’s prodigal son, forcing the clans’ members to battle old ghosts and work through emotional issues as they search for love at any cost.

SOURCE: Production Weekly

ACTRESS CATCHES CHOLERA
Production Weekly has also weighed in with news that Italian actress Giovanna Mezzogiorno has joined Javier Bardem in the cast of Love In The Time Of Cholera for director Mike Newell and New Line Cinema.

The picture is based on the novel by Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and chronicles a love triangle set against the backdrop of turn-of-the-century South America. The story revolves around two young lovers who wait out careers, marriages, affairs and deaths until they can finally reunite.

Oscar-winning The Pianist scribe Ron Harwood adapted the screenplay, which is set to begin in Brazil on August 15.

SOURCE: Production Weekly

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