Jason Sudeikis and Jeremy Irons Enter the 'Race'; Dev Patel is 'The Man Who Knew Infinity'

* Focus Features has picked up the rights to the upcoming Jesse Owens biopic, Race, and as part of the announcement they revealed Jason Sudeikis and Jeremy Irons have joined the cast. Stephan James will play Owens, the track & field star who challenged Adolf Hitler's idea of Aryan supremacy at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Sudeikis will play Owens' obsessive mentor, Larry Snyder, with Owens as American Olympic Committee member Avery Brundage. Stephen Hopkins is directing from a screenplay by Anna Waterhouse and Joe Shrapnel.

* Speaking of Jeremy Irons, he's also set to star in The Man Who Knew Infinity, a film that has been in the works for more than eight years. Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire) and Devika Bhise will star with Matthew Brown making his writing and directorial debut. Patel plays autodidact math genius Srinivasa Ramanujan who, despite his formal training, is plucked from obscurity in Edwardian India by G.H. Hardy (Irons) to become a leader in the field. [Variety]

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Sienna Miller Scales 'High-Rise'; Gerard Butler Joins 'Den of Thieves'; Peter Sarsgaard Leads 'Experimenter'

* Sienna Miller and Jeremy Irons have joined Tom Hiddleston in High-Rise, the next film from Kill List and Sightseers director, Ben Wheatley. Adapted from J.G. Ballard's novel, this one is set inside a luxury high-rise apartment where a violent class war erupts amongst the tenants. Irons will play the building's architect, with Miller a his aide who strikes up a romantic relationship with Hiddleston's character. [ScreenDaily]

* After ditching that awful Point Break remake, Gerard Butler has jumped right into another potentially terrible heist movie. He'll star in Den of Thieves, which is co-written and directed by Christian Gudegast, Butler's writer on London Has Fallen. The story centers on a "legendary bank heist crew decides to rob the Federal Reserve in Los Angeles right under the nose of a rogue sheriff’s deputy." [Variety]

* Peter Sarsgaard and Winona Ryder will headline the biopic, Experimenter, The Stanley Milgram Story. Milgram was the social psychologist whose controversial 1961 experiment studied human willingness to obey authority figures by instructing subjects to deliver what they believed to be painful electric shocks to complete strangers. Michael Almereyda (Hamlet) is directing, with Sarsgaard as Milgram and Ryder as his student and future wife, Sasha Menkin.

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Dakota Johnson Joins 'Black Mass'; Jeremy Irons and Jonathan Rhys Meyers Find 'The Secret Scripture'

* By this time next year Dakota Johnson could be a huge star for playing Anastasia Steele in Fifty Shades of Grey. And we've seen a number of producers jumping on the bandwagon early by casting her in their upcoming films. Johnson has joined Johnny Depp, Joel Edgerton, and Guy Pearce in Black Mass. The Whitey Bulger biopic is directed by Scott Cooper and centers on the infamous Boston mobster and FBI informant who was a fugitive from justice for more than a decade. Johnson will play Bulger's girlfriend, Lindsay, the mother of his 6-year-old son. Johnson can be seen in theaters now in Need for Speed. [Deadline]

* Jeremy Irons and Jonathan Rhys Meyers are joining an adaptation of The Secret Scripture, which already has Jessica Chastain and Vanessa Redgrave starring. Johnny Ferguson is adapting Sebastian Barry's award-winning novel which follows two contradictory narratives in order to uncover the truth about a 100-year-old mental patient. Meyers has been keeping busy on NBC's Dracula, while Irons recently agreed to play Alfred Pennyworth in Man of Steel 2. [The Independent]

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Jesse Eisenberg is Lex Luthor and Jeremy Irons is Alfred in 'Batman vs. Superman'

So while the rumors have suggested Bryan Cranston or Joaquin Phoenix for the Lex Luthor role in Batman vs. Superman, Warner Bros. is going in a completely different direction. With Henry Cavill as a somewhat younger version of the Man of Steel, they are going for a more youthful version of his arch-nemesis by setting Jesse Eisenberg for the role.

Warner Bros. has announced that Eisenberg will play Luthor, which makes sense since both he and Cavill are 30 years old. In addition, Jeremy Irons has been brought on to play Bruce Wayne's loyal butler, Alfred. Both are great additions to surround Cavill and Ben Affleck with, although let's face it...nobody's going to beat Michael Caine as Alfred. Let's be honest here.

Anyway, this is a solid move in the right direction, and we know Eisenberg can make for an awesome douchebag when he needs to.

Batman vs. Superman opens May 6th 2016.

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