Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Poltergeist remake really is happening — so, please, be done with your grievances before they make the first call for action. Bringing it into the conversation once more is a recent, generally fine round of casting, with Deadline first reporting that Jared Harris (Mad Men, Lincoln) is next to join the assembly of stars; his role will be that of “Carrigan, a larger than life TV personality who left the world of academia behind to become the star host of basic cable TV show Haunted House Cleaners.” A child becomes possessed, as you surely remember of the Tobe Hooper original, which requires his help to some extent.

TheWrap, meanwhile, tell us this Gil Kenan-helmed remake is attempting to wrangle Nicholas Braun for a similar position. After Harris‘ character is hired to investigate, recruited by his former flame (herself a professor), one of the woman’s own students “visually documents the investigation and quickly sheds his skepticism regarding what’s really going on inside the Bowen home” — enter the Perks of Being a Wallflower actor, should he actually sign. Youngster Kyle Catlett is looking to board, too, in this case as the middle child of Poltergeist‘s central Bowen family, now led by Rosemarie DeWitt and Sam Rockwell.

With Sam Raimi producing and the director’s own Oz scribe, David Lindsay-Abaire, behind the script, filming on Poltergeist should commence before the year’s end.

Meanwhile, Variety tell us director Jim Mickle (We Are What We Are, Stake Land) has secured a fine three-person team for the developing Cold in July. After Michael C. Hall was secured for its lead role, Sam Shepard, Vinessa Shaw, and Don Johnson are aboard the adaptation of Joe R. Lansdale‘s novel, wherein an everyday home-builder, Richard Dane, kills a burglar in self-defense. All seems settled after the case is looked into, until the thief’s father sets out on a path of vengeance for his slain son by aiming to dispose of Dane’s own offspring.

There’s another twist in the narrative, however, when they and “a pig-raising detective from the Houston backwoods” come across something “bigger […], darker and more dangerous than any of them could have imagined.” While Shaw has been tapped for the role of Dane’s “tough-minded wife,” Shepard and Johnson will be his “sidekicks,” likely signaling that they’ll have some old-man wisdom right at hand.

Mickle has been shooting Cold in July since that eponymous month, with the picture expected to hit around the start of 2014.

With Harris coming along, does the Poltergeist remake gain any heft? How does Cold in July strike you, particularly with this cast set up?

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