Stacy Martin Joins 'The Childhood of a Leader'; 'The Martian' Adds Donald Glover; Hugo Weaving meets 'The Dressmaker'

Nymphomaniac breakout Stacy Martin will take on another sure-to-be controversial project, joining Robert Pattinson in Brady Corbet's directorial debut, The Childhood of a Leader. Written by Corbet and Mona Fastvold (The Sleepwalker), with Tim Roth and Berenice Bejo co-starring, the film is described as “a chilling fable about the rise of fascism in the 20th Century” and follows an American living in 1918 France whose experiences there give birth to a "terrifying ego". Martin will play the boy's French teacher. [ScreenDaily]

Ridley Scott has added Donald Glover (Community) to the otherwise amazing cast of The Martian. Sorry, he does nothing for me. Anyway, the film stars Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Kate Mara, Michael Pena, Mackenzie Davis and Jeff Daniels in the story of an astronaut, one of the first to ever step foot on Mars, who is abandoned after an accident and must stay alive long enough to be rescued. Also coming aboard is Aksel Hennie, best known for starring in Headhunters. Glover will play a NASA employee while Hennie is a fellow astronaut. [TheWrap]

Perennial tough evil guy Hugo Weaving will play a cross-dressing police sergeant in Jocelyn Moorhouse's The Dressmaker. Starring Kate Winslet, Isla Fisher, Liam Hemsworth, and Elizabeth Debicki, the adaptation of Rosalie Ham's book centers on Tilly, a scorned woman who returns to the small country hometown she fled after as a child after being accused of murder. This is hardly new territory for Weaving who played a drag queen in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

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'Headhunters' star Aksel Hennie joins Dwayne Johnson in 'Hercules'

The best foreign language film of last year not titled Rust and Bone was the Norwegian thriller, Headhunters. Although simply calling it a "thriller" is terribly limiting, it's kind of a like a hyper-violent Looney Tunes crime film where everything terrible that can happen surely does happen. You can listen to my review of it here, and then come back and rent it.  One of the best things about it was star, Aksel Hennie, and he's about to make the jump into something a little bit more audience-friendly.

Hennie has joined Brett Ratner and Dwayne Johnson's Hercules film, which is based on the Radical Studios comic book, The Thracian Wars. The story ditches his godly birth and makes him a mortal, not unlike the approach taken in the film Troy, and has him in barbarian Thrace training a ruthless king's army. THR's story has additional details, saying Hercules will lead a group of mercenaries on a job that is not as it appears to be. Hennie will play Tydeus, a twin axe-wielding warrior devoted to Hercules, but is also such a madman he needs to be chained up while sleeping.

It's unclear when production will begin, but adding a fast-rising international star like Hennie should be a big boost.

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