The Casting Couch: April 12, 2006

Will Smith has just been attached to star in Greenbacks for 20th Century Fox based on a pitch by Doug Cook and David Weisberg.

The action flick is set in Morocco and revolves around an American ex-patriot who stumbles across a plot to destabilize the world's economy by mass-producing perfect counterfeit greenbacks.

SOURCE: Variety

Variety is reporting that Queen Latifah is set to star in Welfare Queen for Rogue Pictures.

The film is based on the life of Dorothy Woods and is described as a fact based story of a woman who scammed the welfare system out of a fortune.

"This is the first major deal we've signed with a studio, and we did it because we felt confident we could go from Welfare Queen to Horror in the Hamptons, which is a script by Alex Mirkin about a bunch of 16-year-olds chopping each other up," Latifah told Variety. "We get our hands on a lot of material we can do well, and our dream is to work up to producing three movies a year. The deal isn't based on me being in every film."

SOURCE: Variety

The Oscar-winning documentary director (One Day in September) will helm the story which revolves around a young U.S. president who discovers the existence of a secret cabal that runs the government and wants him dead.

You may be more familiar with Macdonald's latest documentary Touching the Void and he will also be directing the upcoming Fox Searchlight feature The Last King of Scotland starring Forrest Whitaker, which is expected to be released later this year.

SOURCE: Variety

Wicked City concerns beasts from a parallel dimension and a secret resistance organization trying to prevent the apocalypse.

Original books by Hideyuki Kikuchi, bestsellers in the early 1980s, were adapted as anime "Yoju toshi" by Yoshiaki Kawajiri. Stallion has acquired rights, and Dippe and Johnny Hartmann are penning the screenplay.

SOURCE: Variety

Kate Mara is set to play Mark Wahlberg's love interest in the Antoine Fuqua helmed feature The Shooter for Paramount Pictures.

The film is based on "Point of Impact," a novel by Stephen Hunter, which centers around a master sniper (Wahlberg) lured out of a reclusive existence to prevent an assassination. He's double-crossed and hunted for a murder.

If you aren't sure who Mara is, think to Heath Ledger's daughter in Brokeback Mountain, she will also be seen in McG's We Are Marshall.

SOURCE: Variety

Did you know Tyrese was a writer? Me neither, but apparently he has penned a script and it has just been acquired by Screen Gems for Tyrese to star in and produce.

The pic will be titled To Each His Own and is described as an urban drama about two friends in conflict, through his HQ Pictures banner.

Apparently this isn't his first soirée into writing as he also pitched a couple of stories earlier but neither of them turned out the way he wanted. Now that To Each His Own is moving along he plans to go back to a one of his early works and give it a rewrite.

"My own interest was borne out of the frustration of watching white and Latino guys write these urban movies that had no genuine (ear) for the dialogue," Gibson told Variety.

SOURCE: Variety

SOURCE: The Hollywood Reporter

The story is being kept quiet, but it is described by The Hollywood Reporter as a contemporary high-concept relationship comedy in the vein of It's a Wonderful Life.

SOURCE: The Hollywood Reporter

SOURCE: The Hollywood Reporter

The news is that Durst is set to make his directorial debut on his very own indie pic The Education of Charlie Banks with shooting expected to begin on June 12 in Providence, R.I.

The story centers on a Vassar College student who gets an unannounced visit from the scariest kid from his old New York neighborhood. The kid wears a backwards red cap all the time and claims to have slept with Britney Spears when he really didn't.

I added that last part.

SOURCE: Variety