Matt Smith Joins 'Patient Zero'; Bryce Dallas Howard Eyes 'Pete's Dragon'; Martin Freeman does 'The Taliban Shuffle'

 Ex-Doctor Who star Matt Smith, who will be seen next year in Terminator: Genisys, is in talks to join Natalie Dormer in Patient Zero. Directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky (Deadfall), the film takes place after a global pandemic creates a new species driven by violence. One human survivor immune to the disease and able to communicate with the infected must locate patient zero and find a cure to save his wife and all of humanity. [Deadline]

Bryce Dallas Howard (The Help) may join the Pete's Dragon remake written and directed by David Lowery (Ain't them Bodies Saints). The non-musical live-action/animated hybrid centers on an abused orphan who befriends an invisible dragon. Robert Redford, Oona Lawrence, and Oakes Fegley star, with Howard in talks to play a skeptical forest ranger. [THR]

Bilbo Baggins...er, Martin Freeman, will do The Taliban Shuffle with Tina Fey. Margot Robbie is also aboard the comedy film based on Kim Barker's memoir about her stint "as a fish-out-of-water in Kabul, filing stories about militants, being a woman in wartime Iraq and Pakistan, dealing with boredom interspersed with dashes of violence and the promiscuous war correspondent culture." Freeman would play Fey's love interest, a Scottish photojournalist. John Requa and Glenn Ficarra (Crazy Stupid Love) are directing.

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Natalie Dormer is 'Patient Zero'; Liam Neeson Cameos in 'Ted 2'; Patrick Wilson Joins 'Bone Tomahawk'

Game of Thrones' Natalie Dormer will continue her busy steak by starring in Patient Zero, a zombie apocalypse thriller from Stefan Ruzowitzky, the Oscar-winning director of The Counterfeiters. Written by Mike Le, Patient Zero centers on one man with the ability to speak with the undead and hopes to use that power to end the zombie outbreak, saving his wife in the process. Dormer will be seen next in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay. [Deadline]

While Seth MacFarlane's comedy-western A Million Ways to Die in the West drew tumbleweeds earlier this year, he apparently had a good time working with Liam Neeson. MacFarlane revealed on Twitter that Neeson was part of Ted 2, but didn't say much about his role. It's likely to be just a cameo as it sounds like he was only on set for a day. He joins the returning Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis, with Amanda Seyfried taking on the female lead this time and Morgan Freeman playing a famous civil rights attorney. Ted 2 opens June 26th 2015.

Patrick Wilson and Matthew Fox have joined the intriguing horror Western, Bone Hawk, which already has Kurt Russell and Richard Jenkins starring. Directed by S. Craig Zahler, the story follows a sheriff (Russell), a gunslinger, a befuddled oldster (Jenkins) and a cowboy as they attempt to rescue a group of captives  from a band of cannibalistic troglodytes. Wilson plays a driven and thoughtful cowboy whose rise to the foreman position of a cattle outfit is interrupted by an unfortunate accident that reshapes his life in unforeseen ways. Fox will play John Brooder, the eloquent, albeit inscrutable gentleman whose dark inclinations have put him and his polished weapons at the very edge of the western frontier.

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