As far as I’m concerned, the outlook on Broken City was already pretty damn good. Mark Wahlberg, Russell Crowe, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Barry Pepper starring in a neo-noir for Allen Hughes? Hard to go wrong there. Yet, things actually look even better, since Variety reports that Jeffrey Wright will join the film as “the police commissioner who has a complicated history with Crowe’s character.”

If you don’t remember, I should mention that Brian Tucker‘s script follows “an ex-cop turned private detective (Mark Wahlberg) who is hired by the mayor (Russell Crowe) to see if his wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is cheating on him.” When the man she’s cheating with dies, the main character does some digging, and soon discovers a real estate scam the mayor is a part of. In a typical noir fashion, things should get a bit twisty and knotty from that point on. Wright, meanwhile, should fit into the cast nicely, but that might have to do with the fact that he accommodates himself well in just about everything. Broken City will open on January 18th, 2013.

Additional casting news is coming from ShowBlitz, who are reporting that Game of Thrones actor Kit Harington has been chosen by Warner Bros. and David Dobkin to play King Arthur in Arthur & Lancelot, the director’s new spin on the well-known medieval tale. Joel Kinnaman has already been signed to star as Lancelot in the film; unfortunately, not much else is available in the way of information on the project. Not a surprising choice, since the two of them were those most heavily rumored to play the titular knights.

My thoughts on the actual selections aren’t that deep or resounding, since this isn’t a film I have many deep or resounding feelings about. But, hey, it could be fun; there simply needs to be more stuff at hand to get me invested in what Dobkin might be doing with such a familiar story. Some scheduling issues have to be ironed out in the near future, but, once done, production will commence in the beginning of 2012. The film itself will open on March 15th, 2013.

Are you happy with either casting choice? How do you feel about the films they’re joining?