'Ocean's Thirteen' Gets Underway July 21

They aren't wasting anytime on a third dose.

By: Brad Brevet
Published: Monday, March 27th 2006 at 6:58 PM

Talk about an easy topic for next week's podcast, Variety is reporting that Warner Bros. has turned on the greenlight for an Ocean's Thirteen and the production date has been set for July 21. On top of that bit of news a new face has been added to the cast, of course, and the numero 13 cast member is Ellen Barkin.

It was also mentioned that Steven Soderbergh is back to direct the script by Rounders scribes Brian Koppelman and David Levien. Oh yeah, I should also mention that it was also said that Julia Roberts and Catherine Zeta-Jones are out, while the usual suspects are back with George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Andy Garcia, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan, Eddie Jemison, Carl Reiner, Elliott Gould and Shaobo Qin all returning for the follow-up.

Producer Jerry Weintraub told Variety, "The odds were long on this happening, and it would not have been possible were it not for those actors and director moving other projects out of the way… The five of us are all great friends, and we decided we were going to kill ourselves to get this done."

As for the story, Weintraub wouldn't disclose plot details, other than that Barkin gets closely involved with Damon's character. The one big absence I noticed from the article is Vincent Cassel. The Night Fox could clearly be seen at the end of Ocean's Twelve and made it obvious a third film was in the plans, but will he be included?