After being handpicked by Stephenie Meyer to adapt her Twilight follow-up, the body-snatching romance The Host, Andrew Niccol has also been set to direct. With filming completed on the Amanda Seyfried-Justin Timberlake flick Now, Niccol can soon shift his focus to The Host, which will star Saoirse Ronan as human Melanie Stryder and the alien parasite who comes to inhabit her body. It's all coming together! [Deadline]
Following the disappointing fantasy dud Red Riding Hood, Catherine Hardwicke will direct an adaptation that's perhaps more in her wheelhouse: the angsty female friendship drama The Bitch Posse. Martha O'Conner's 2006 novel follows three damaged heroines from their senior year of high school into their 30s, divided by a terrible secret that tears them apart. Sex, drugs, cutting -- what three young actresses could take on this material? Get to fantasy casting, Movieliners!
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In a huge development for this week's Movieline interviewee Wes Bentley, the actor has landed a high-profile gig in Gary Ross's 2012 adaptation The Hunger Games! The role marks Bentley's first major advancement since bouncing back from career-threatening personal demons, and pits him against the likes of Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson as sinister foil Seneca Crane, the Head Gamemaker in charge of devising deadly obstacles for heroine Katniss Everdeen and her fellow tributes. More on Seneca Crane and what this means for Bentley after the jump.
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Big news for Stephenie Meyer fans: The bestselling author's Twilight follow-up, The Host, has found its onscreen lead. Deadline reports that 17-year-old Saoirse Ronan (Hanna, Atonement) will play opposite herself in the Andrew Niccol-penned adaptation of Meyer's sci-fi/romance novel about an alien named Wanderer who takes over the body of earthling Melanie Stryder, only to discover that her human host's own memories and emotions affect her.
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In news that might have caused my fifth grade self to break out in an awkward dance of joy, there is actual movement on a long-attempted adaptation of Anne McCaffrey's The Dragonriders of Pern series. X-Men writer David Hayter will reportedly adapt Dragonflight, the first novel in McCaffrey's celebrated book series set on the planet of Pern, where generations of humans form telepathic links with fire-breathing dragons to defend themselves from a deadly enemy known as Thread.
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