Blunt Joins Cruise in 'Kill,' Connelly Rumored for 'Noah,' 'Muppets 2' Talk and Vaughn Eyes 'Rockford'

Emily Blunt is in talks to join Tom Cruise in All You Need is Kill directed by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity) and adapted on the graphic novel of the same name. The story is said to be in the vein of Groundhog Day with a twist, centering on a soldier in a war against aliens who finds himself reliving his last day over and over after being killed. Through the training and battles he experiences in these time loops, he becomes a better soldier. Blunt will play another soldier who fights alongside Cruise.

The same report also says Blunt is among the top choices to star alongside Johnny Depp in the Warner Bros. remake The Thin Man with Emma Stone and Kristen Wiig also being among the top contenders. I already detailed that shortlist which you can read about here. [source]

We recently learned Paramount dated Darren Aronofsky's Noah for a March 28, 2014 release with Russell Crowe set to star. Now a rumor places Jennifer Connelly, who starred for Aronofsky in Requiem for a Dream, and Saoirse Ronan as possible members of the cast.

Connelly would play Noah's wife Naameh, which would also reteam her with Crowe after she played his wife in 2001's A Beautiful Mind, a role that won her an Oscar. Ronan's potential role is unknown. Filming is set to begin in July. [source]

Ralph Macchio (The Karate Kid) will play Psycho screenwriter Joe Stefano in Sacha Gervasi's Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho alongside the large ensemble cast including Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, Scarlett Johansson, James D'Arcy, Jessica Biel, Toni Collette, Danny Huston, Michael Stuhlbarg, Michael Wincott and Kurtwood Smith. [source]

Mark Ruffalo is in talks to play Olympic gold medal-winning wrestler David Schultz in Bennett Miller's long-in-the-making drama Foxcatcher, which is slated to co-star Steve Carell and Channing Tatum. The film is based on the true story of John du Pont (Carell), the paranoid schizophrenic heir to the du Pont chemical fortune who built a wrestling training facility called Team Foxcatcher on his Pennsylvania estate. David Schultz (Ruffalo) was a longtime friend of du Pont who had repeatedly tried to help him before du Pont shot and killed him in 1996.

Police never established a motive for the crime, which was witnessed by Schultz's wife and du Pont's head of security. After the shooting, du Pont barricaded himself in his mansion for two days while he negotiated his surrender over the phone. [source]

Pariah star Adepero Oduye in negotiations for the female lead in Steve McQueen's Twelve Years A Slave alongside Michael Fassbender, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Brad Pitt. The film tells the true story of Solomon Northrup (Ejiofor), a New York citizen who was kidnapped in Washington in 1841 and rescued from a cotton plantation in Louisiana in 1853. With that I will now say you MUST be sure and check out Pariah once it hits DVD and Blu-ray next week... it was one of last year's under-appreciated and overlooked gems. [source]

In the release date department, Steven Soderbergh's The Bitter Pill will hit theaters on February 8, 2013. The film stars Rooney Mara, Jude Law, Channing Tatum, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Vinessa Shaw in a story that centers on a troubled and depressed woman (Mara) who is taking serious amounts of prescription drugs to deal with the anxiety surrounding the pending release of her husband (Tatum) from prison. [source]

She was rumored before, but Julianne Moore is said to be in talks to play Chloe Moretz's titular character's mother in Kimberly Peirce's remake of Stephen King's Carrie. (that was a lot of possessives) [source]

The Muppets co-writer Nicholas Stoller recently spoke with Collider.com and gave a few details concerning the story for the second film telling the site:

I will say, it is a caper. It is a comedy caper... I think it’s similar to the first one in that the first one certainly had dramatic connections to the first Muppet movie, but it was a whole new thing, hopefully. This is the same thing. We love The Great Muppet Caper and we love Muppets Take Manhattan and whatnot. So this has some elements of that, but it’s different because it’s in the tone of what James [Bobin] and I like to do.

Stoller adds Disney would like to release the film in summer 2013, but he doesn't think that's realistic. [source]

Pedro Almodovar's new film, The Brief Lovers (Los amantes pasajeros) is firming up casting as it prepares to begin filming this summer in Madrid. The cast includes Javier Camara, Jose Maria Yazpik, Lola Duenas, Cecilia Roth, Carlos Areces and Raul Arevalo and is said to follow a group of people who are on the verge of a disaster with the whole film rumored to be set entirely on a plane. The film is said to be a "pure comedy" and if the rumor of the film's setting ends up being true it gives the film's title a little more weight and depending on how far Almodovar takes the disaster element it could also give hint to how the film ends. Expectation is to release the feature spring 2013. [source]

Finally, Vince Vaughn is reportedly set to star in a feature film adaptation of the late '70s television series starring James Garner, The Rockford Files with Rounders screenwriters David Levien and Brian Koppelman penning the script for Universal Pictures. [source]