German actress Alexandra Maria Lara joins Ron Howard's F-1 racing flick, Rush

While  futurewas becoming ever more tenuous, Ron Howard set his sights on a number of potential projects to fill the void. The most promising of those was Rush, written by Peter Morgan(The Queen) and documenting the rivalry between 1970s Formula One racers Niki Lauda and James Hunt. The two were neck and neck for the World Championship in 1976, until a devastating crash nearly killed Lauda, putting him in a coma for a few days, although he make a remarkable return to action a few weeks later.

Chris Hemsworth(Thor) is set to play Hunt, while Inglourious Basterds co-star Daniel Bruhl is Lauda. There had been no other casting up until now, with Variety reporting that German actress Alexandra Maria Lara has taken on the female lead. There isn't any firm information on exactly what that role entails, but it can be assumed she'll be shacking up with somebody.  Lara may not be a familiar name to most people, but she's had some juicy roles in a few great films. She first caught my eye as part of the Joy Division biopic, Control.  She was also pretty good as a key member of the Red Army Faction in 2008's The Baader Meinhof Complex. If you haven't seen that one, put it at the top of your Netflix queue right now.

Shooting on Rush may possibly begin at the end of the year, although there's no distribution set up for it at this stage. But since this is an Imagine/Working Title production, it's likely to end up at Universal.