Samuel L. Jackson is 'The Black Phantom', Dakota Fanning Joins 'American Pastoral', Casey Affleck Boards 'The Finest Hours'

 Playing characters with wildly flamboyant and colorful names is nothing to Samuel L. Jackson. Nick Fury, "Stacks" Edwards (in Goodfellas), Zeus Carver (Die Hard with a Vengeance), Shaft, Romulus Ledbetter (The Caveman's Valentine), Mace Windu, The Octupus (The Spirit), and that's just the start. Now you can add The Black Phantom to his list of strange monickers as Jackson has replaced Jamie Foxx in the action-comedy. He'll star alongside Kevin Hart with Tim Story directing the film about the partnership between a betrayed mob enforcer played by Hart, and Jackson's Black Phantom, the notorious hit man hired to kill him. [Deadline]

Hot on the heels of Jennifer Connelly coming aboard Philip Noyce's adaptation of American Pastoral comes word that Dakota Fanning is now joining the cast. Ewan McGregor stars in the film based on Philip Roth's book, with Fanning taking on the key role of Merry Levov, the daughter to happily middle-class Jewish businessman Swede Levov, whose life is upended by the political climate of the 1960s.

Casey Affleck is in talks to join Chris Pine in Disney's rescue drama, The Finest Hours. Directed by Craig Gillespie (Million Dollar Arm), the true story is based on the 1952 collision of two oil tankers near Cape Cod and the daring Coast Guard rescue that followed. Affleck will be seen next in Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, and is planning to direct a biopic on Major League Baseball slugger Josh Hamilton. [Deadline]

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Elijah Wood Joins 'The Last Witch Hunter'; Jennifer Connelly Boards 'American Pastoral'

Vin Diesel can be heard right now voicing Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy, but he's got another action-fantasy franchise on the way in The Last Witch Hunter. Elijah Wood is the latest to join the supernatural flick which, co-starring alongside Michael Caine and Rose Leslie. Breck Eisner is directing the film which centers on an immortal witch hunter who teams up with one of his natural enemies to save modern day New York City from a coven seeking to unleash a plague on humanity.

With Philip Noyce's adaptation of Philip Roth novel American Pastoral set to film early next year, Jennifer Connelly has taken the female lead opposite Ewan McGregor. She'll play the wife to Seymour "Swede" Levov, a Jewish-American businessman who sees his happy existence ruined by the political climate of the 1960s when his daughter commits an act of terror protesting the Vietnam War.

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Philip Noyce to Direct Ewan McGregor in 'American Pastoral'; First Look at Al Pacino in 'The Humbling'

In the works for more than a decade, an adaptation of Philip Roth's novel American Pastoral has seen Fisher Stevens attached as a director at one point, and briefly had Jennifer Connelly and husband Paul Bettany involved. But like other recent Roth adaptations, Elegy and The Human Stain, nailing down the right approach to the Pulitzer Prize-winning material has proven difficult, but Philip Noyce (Salt) has apparently figured it out.

According to Comingsoon and first reported some time ago by IF.com.au, Noyce will direct American Pastoral beginning early next year. Not only that, he's found a star in Ewan McGregor, who will play successful Jewish-American businessman Seymour "Swede" Levov, who sees his happy upper-middle class existence ruined by the turmoil of the 1960s under President Lyndon Johnson. John Romero (The Lincoln Lawyer) will write the screenplay.

And another of Philip Roth's novels is headed to the screen soon as Al Pacino and Greta Gerwig are starring in The Humbling, with the first image arriving via Chop Shop. This is another film that was kicking around for a lot of years before Pacino and director Barry Levinson (of HBO's You Don't Know Jack) decided to reteam on the story of a famed theater actor who begins having a sexual affair with a lesbian woman half his age. No word on a release date yet but the supporting cast is solid with Dianne Wiest, Mandy Patinkin, and Charles Grodin co-starring, and a script by The Graduate screenwriter Buck Henry.

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