Jeff Daniels Boards 'The Martian'; Eric Bana gets'The Finest Hours'; Richard Madden Joins 'Bastille Day'

 Jeff Daniels, who has Dumb and Dumber Too and The Newsroom's third season coming up, has joined Ridley Scott's The Martian. The cast keeps getting better with Matt Damon in the lead and Kate Mara, Jessica Chastain, and Michael Pena in talks. Adapted from Andy Weir's book, The Martian follows the first astronaut to ever set foot on Mars as he tries to survive being abandoned by his crew after an accident. [THR]

Disney has added Eric Bana to the cast of The Finest Hours, the period thriller starring Casey Affleck and Chris Pine. Directed by Craig Gillespie, the film "chronicles the massive rescue mission that’s launched when a pair of oil tankers split in two off the coast of Cape Cod in 1952." In a role that sounds similar to what he did in Lone Survivor, Bana will play the respected Coast Guard warrant officer who sends his men out on the dangerous rescue mission. [Deadline]

Game of Thrones' Richard Madden will join fellow HBO alum Idris Elba in Bastille Day, the James Watkins-directed action flick which "follows a rogue U.S. CIA operative who is tasked with interrogating and eventually making a young American man, who’s also a con-artist, 'disappear' in order to avoid embarrassment to the U.S. government after the American is linked as the prime suspect to an attack on the Paris metro. After several more attacks, the operative realizes the young American is innocent and may be the only link to the person actually orchestrating the terrorist attacks."

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Michael Shannon Boards 'Freeheld'; Adele Exarchopoulos in 'Bastille Day' ; Cate Blanchett Narrates 'Voyage of Time'

* Ellen Page's gay rights drama, Freeheld, has just added Michael Shannon to a cast that already includes Julianne Moore and Zach Galifianakis. Directed by Peter Sollett, the film tells the true story of a gay police woman diagnosed with a terminal illness who must fight to ensure her pension passes to her partner. No word on Shannon's role but the cast and subject matter alone make this project a pretty big deal.

* Blue is the Warmest Color's Adele Exarchopoulos is starting to see the results of her success. She's taken a role in Sean Penn's latest directorial effort, The Last Face, and now she's boarding action flick, Bastille Day, starring Idris Elba. Coming aboard to replace the departed Pierre Morel as director is James Watkins (The Woman in Black), which should amount to quite a change in approach. Anyway, Elba plays a washed-up CIA agent with Exarchopoulos likely as the artist accused of a terrorist attack in the Paris metro.

* Terrence Malick's forever-developing documentary, Voyage of Time, has long had Brad Pitt attached to narrate. And it made sense considering the director shot much of it while filming The Tree of Life, and is something he calls "a celebration of the earth, displaying the whole of time, from the birth of the universe to its final collapse.” After all this time the film still isn't coming out until 2016, with two versions of differing length, and now we know Cate Blanchett will be joining Pitt as narrator. She'll apparently be replacing Emma Thompson, who had been attached previously. [ScreenDaily]

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