The Rock for 'Hercules,' Anthony Mackie for Bay's 'Pain and Gain' and Bigelow's 'Bin Laden' Adds Four

Hercules is to be directedby Brett Ratner

By: Brad Brevet
Published: Thursday, February 23rd 2012 at 1:18 PM

Some interesting casting has come down the pike lately and we'll begin with Kathryn Bigelow's Osama bin Laden feature Kill Bin Laden, which centers on the black ops mission that culminated in the death of Osama bin Laden last year during a high-stakes raid on his compound in Pakistan. Bigelow and Boal have been developing the project since 2008 and plan to incorporate recent events into the film.

Added to the cast recently are (pictured in order to the right) Kyle Chandler ("Friday Night Lights", Super 8), Nash Edgerton, Jennifer Ehle (Contagion) and Harold Perrineau Jr. (The Matrix Revolutions, "Lost"). These four join previously cast Joel Edgerton, Jessica Chastain, Edgar Ramirez and Mark Strong.

Nash Edgerton, brother to Joel and best known as a stuntman and director, will play a Navy SEAL while it's rumored Chandler will play a CIA agent. Perrineau and Ehle's characters have not been revealed.

Production set to get underway for a December 19 release, staying clear of the U.S. presidential elections in November while the Pentagon is still investigating charges made by Rep. Peter King that Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker) received inside information about the mission from the Obama administration in preparing the script.

Next up comes word from Variety.com that Anthony Mackie, who coincidentally had a role in Bigelow's The Hurt Locker, is in negotiations to play Adrian Doorbal, a big-hearted bodybuilder who works out with Mark Wahlberg's character, Daniel Lugo, in Michael Bay's Pain and Gain.

The film is based on a 1999 Miami New Times article, Pain and Gain that follows a couple of criminal bodybuilders involved in an extortion ring and a kidnapping plot. Wahlberg plays one of those bodybuilders while Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson plays the other. Doorbal ultimately gets involved with the criminal scheme.

And finally, more from Variety reveals Dwayne Johnson is in talks to star in Hercules for MGM and director Brett Ratner based on Steve Moore's graphic novel "Hercules: The Thracian War" with an adapted screenplay by Ryan Condol, who wrote the script for Paradise Lost for Alex Proyas, a project that was recently aborted.

The description of the material (per Amazon) goes as follows:

Nearly 3,200 years ago, a tormented soul walked the Earth as neither man nor god: Hercules, powerful son of the god-king Zeus, and for this he received nothing but suffering. After 12 arduous labors and the loss of his family, this dark, world-weary soul turned his back on the gods, finding solace only in bloody battle. Over the years, he warmed to the company of six similar souls, bonded by their love of fighting and the presence of death – never questioning where they go or who they fight, just how much they will be paid. Now the King of Thrace has hired these mercenaries to turn his men into the greatest army of all time, which means training them to be as bloodthirsty and ruthless as their own reputation. It is time for this band of lost souls to finally have their eyes opened to how far they have fallen – and the narrow, perilous path to their own redemption.

There's no word on when that might actually head into production though with the failure of last year's Conan it seems like a risky venture. Ratner's involvement was first reported back in April 2011 (source).

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