With this weekend’s The Call being a certified hit, the future is looking bright for director Brad Anderson. Perhaps most well-known in the independent circuit films such as Session 9 and The Machinist, his Halle Berry-starrer put him on a bigger map and now he’s lining up his next project, one that’s already set for a summer start date.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Kate Beckinsale has come aboard to topline an adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe short story The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, titled Eliza Graves. The psychological thriller, which was once in the hands of Paranormal Activity‘s Oren Peli, comes from a script by Joe Gangemi (Wind Chill) and centers on an eager med school student, who goes to work at an asylum, where unbeknownst to him the inmates have taken over as doctors. Beckinsale will play our title character, an inmate patient, for the film set for a June 21st production start in Bulgaria.
In other actress casting news, Seth MacFarlane has found a prostitute for his Ted follow-up, A Million Ways to Die in the West. According to THR, comedian Sarah Silverman will hustle for the western comedy, joining Charlize Theron, Liam Neeson, Amanda Seyfried and Giovanni Ribisi. Silverman’s character is a fiancee to Ribisi’s character, but is the town’s experienced prostitute, but denies her significant other from sex, “believing that as Christians the couple should wait until marriage before lying down together.”
Drawing comparisons to Blazing Saddles, MacFarlane plays a sheepish farmer named Albert who chickens out of a gunfight and sees his girlfriend (Seyfried) leave him. When he meets the wife of a notorious outlaw (Theron) who offers to teach him how to shoot, the farmer at first sees a chance to win back his love but slowly falls for the woman. Complications ensue when the outlaw (Neeson) returns and reclaims his woman. We can expect a likely summer 2014 release for the film that’s set to start shooting this spring.