Abbie Cornish and Jim Sturgess Face the 'Geostorm'; Carra Patterson Joins 'Straight Outta Compton'

 For his directorial debut, Dean Devlin is following in his buddy Roland Emmerich's footsteps with Geostorm, a film that sounds like 2012 meets White House Down. Gerard Butler is already on board to star in the sci-fi adventure flick, and now in talks to join him are Abbie Cornish, Jim Sturgess, Ed Harris, and Andy Garcia. Butler plays a stubborn but charming satellite designer who must work with his estranged brother (Sturgess) to save the world from a man-made storm when the weather controlling satellites malfunction. This is followed by a trip into space and a plot to assassinate the President. Seriously. Cornish will play Sturgess' girlfriend, who happens to be a Secret Service agent, with Harris as the Secretary of State and Garcia as the President. Filming is to begin in October. [THR]

Between the hails of gunfire filming is still underway on N.W.A. biopic Straight Outta Compton, and now the role of another key hip-hop figure has been cast. Carra Patterson (Why Did I Get Married Too?) will play Eazy-E's wife Tomica Woods in the film which chronicles the rise of the legendary rap group. Woods married Eric "Eazy-E" Wright on the eve of his death due to AIDS complications. Woods inherited the Ruthless Records label from him and is one of the film's producers.

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First Trailer for 'Stonehearst Asylum' Starring Kate Beckinsale, Michael Caine, and Ben Kingsley

Any time there's an opportunity to see two legends like Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley in the same movie it's a good thing, but should we be concerned about the utter lack of buzz for psychological thriller, Stonehearst Asylum? Formerly titled Eliza Graves, the film stars Kate Beckinsale and Jim Sturgess, and is based on an Edgar Allen Poe short. So what's the problem? Maybe the answers can be found in the first trailer, which has just come online.

Directed by Brad Anderson, who led one of the great modern mystery films in Transsiberian, this one looks like a poor man's Shutter Island. Sturgess plays a young med school grad who takes a job at a psychiatric hospital where "the inmates are running the asylum" has never been a more appropriate turn of phrase. The mood is murky (why are asylums always placed under such dense fog?) and it looks pretty campy, so maybe there's some fun to be had?

Stonehearst Asylum hits VOD and theaters the same day on October 24th.

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First Trailer for 'Kidnapping Freddy Heineken' Starring Sam Worthington and Anthony Hopkins

There's just something about Sam Worthington and starring in movies with painfully on-the-nose titles. A couple of years ago he starred in Man On a Ledge, which was about *wait for it* a man standing on a ledge. And soon he'll be seen in the crime thriller Kidnapping Freddy Heineken, which is about the true case of the kidnapping of beer mogul Freddy Heineken. Way to keep things simple, Worthington.

Daniel Alfredson (The Girl Who Played with Fire) is directing a film about the crime, and the first trailer for it is probably more promising than it has any right to be. A large part of the reason is the cast, which has Worthington, Ryan Kwanten (True Blood), and Jim Sturgess as three of the kidnappers with Anthony Hopkins as Heineken. Heineken was kidnapped back in 1983 and held for a ransom of about 35 million Dutch guilders, the largest ransom payout in history. The criminals spent years on the run afterwards but the film seems to be focused mainly on the planning of the crime and the clashing personalities within the group, manipulated further by a chatty Heineken.

Kidnapping Freddy Heineken is still wrapping up production so nothing on a release date yet.

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Jim Sturgess, Ryan Kwanten, and Sam Worthington Are 'Kidnapping Freddy Heineken'

Despite having directed the Swedish versions of The Girl Who Played with Fire and its sequel The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, Daniel Alfredson has yet to make a name for himself here in America as his brother, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy helmer Tomas Alfredson. That could be about to change as he recently signed on to direct Anthony Hopkins in Kidnapping Freddy Heineken, a true crime story about the famous beer mogul. And now with filming set to begin later this month, an impressive trio of young stars has come aboard.

Ryan Kwanten (True Blood), Jim Sturgess, and Sam Worthington have joined the film in unspecified roles, but perhaps the story it depicts will clue us in. Based on the best-selling book by Peter L. de Vries, the film centers on the 1983 kidnapping of Alfred "Freddy" Heineken and his driver, leading to a whopping ransom payout of 35 million Dutch guilders, which is about $50M today. Hopkins will play Heineken, and it can probably be assumed that at least a couple of the new additions will play his kidnappers.  The high-profile story continues to be talked about in the Netherlands, with de Vries' book remaining on the charts there for the last 20 years. An investigative journalist, it was de Vries who found where one of the kidnappers had been hiding for years after escaping from prison.

Kidnapping Freddy Heineken is expect to hit theaters next year.

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Jim Sturgess, Garrett Hedlund, Joel Edgerton, Eddie Redmayne and more vying for Star-Lord role in 'Guardians of the Galaxy'

The red-headed stepchild of Marvel's superhero teams, Guardians of the Galaxy will certainly be the quirkiest film in their cinematic world. And so it stands to reason that an odd mix of talent would be in the running for the major roles. With the film only a couple of years out, casting is getting underway and a rather lengthy list of potential stars has been revealed.

Deadline reports that Lee Pace, Garrett Hedlund, Joel Edgerton, Jack Huston, Jim Sturgess, Eddie Redmayne, Sullivan Stapleton, and James Marsden are said to be vying for the part of Peter Quill aka Star-Lord, the leader of the space-faring heroes. Considering he's the only human in a team full of talking animals and extraterrestrials, Peter will likely be the main character of the film, and so it would make sense for Marvel to get somebody with a real presence. To me, that instantly eliminates Hudlund and the unproven Stapleton. Marsden played Cyclops in the X-men movies but did anybody really think of him as the team leader? Neither did I. Sturgess showed his actiony-side in Cloud Atlas recently, and Edgerton I think may be too old. That leaves Huston, Pace, and Redmayne, all of whom would make solid choices. Redmayne could be red hot after Les Miserables next month, and Huston has David Chase's Not Fade Away right around the  corner.

So who is Peter Quill, anyway? Born during an unusual astrological phenomenon, his mother was killed by an alien leaving him to fend for himself since childhood. He eventually joined NASA and through devious means gained the mantle of Star-Lord , an interplanetary peacekeeper.

That's a lot of folks Marvel's going to be choosing from, so we could be waiting awhile to find out who actually gets the job. Guardians of the Galaxy will be directed by James Gunn and opens on August 1st 2014.

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Trailer Time: One Day, starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess

David Nicholls decided to adapt his own 2009 novel, One Day, into a feature film. Directed by Lone Scherfig(An Education), the story is of Emma(Anne Hathaway) and Dexter(Jim Sturgess), who sleep together one night back in 1988 right before their college graduation. They don't become a couple, but stay friends, and the film covers their relationship over the course of 20 years by looking at one day of each year, July 15th. Check out the trailer below...



Not gonna lie, this is the kind of movie I tend to fall for. I prefer a straight up romance, presented in (relatively) unique fashion to the tired old rom-coms we get nowadays. And yet I'm extremely weary about this one. It's not a problem with Anne Hathaway. I'm sure she'll be fantastic despite the disappearing/reappearing accent she has here. It's Jim Sturgess, who I always feel is still working because better actors simply can't take every role. Maybe he'll change my mind for once.

One Day makes it's way into theaters on August 19th where it'll be soundly thrashed by something much bigger.

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1st look at sci-fi romance, Upside Down, starring Kirsten Dunst and Jim Sturgess

Holy crap I had totally forgotten about this movie! I first wrote about Upside Down, the sci-fi romance starring Kirsten Dunst and Jim Sturgess, way back in October of 2009. That was around the time Dunst officially signed on, and I think it was then that Sturgess had won the lead role over Emile Hirsch. Directec by Juan Diego Solanas, Upside Down is the story of two childhood loves separated by living in alternate universes. The film recently wrapped shooting in Montreal, and French website Into the Screen has the first images, which you can check out below....

There's still some question as to when we might get a chance to see Upside Down here in our neck of the woods. The film is scheduled to be released in France some time in May 2011. Studio 37, the primary company producing the film, partnered up with a couple of other European investors to get the project made at a $50M budget. Warner Brothers is distributing the French release, so let's hope they'll bring it over here so we can check it out not too long after. You can check out the official plot synopsis below as well!

Adam is a seemingly ordinary guy in a very extraordinary universe. He lives humbly trying to make ends meet, but his romantic spirit holds on to the memory of a girl he met once upon a time from another world, an inverted affluent world with its own gravity, directly above but beyond reach… a girl named Eve. Their childhood flirtation becomes an impossible love. But when he catches a glimpse of grown?up Eve on television, nothing will get in the way of getting her back… Not even the law or science!

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