Actor Harris Dickinson will play The Prince opposite Elle Fanning in the sequel to Maleficient. Dickinson, who is best known for playing J Paul Getty III in FX’s Trust, replaces Brenton Thwaites, who played the role in the first film in 2014, reported Variety. The 21-year-old actor joins Michelle Pfeiffer and Ed Skrein as the newcomers in the sequel. Angelina Jolie is coming back for the sequel as the Maleficent, while Fanning will reprise her role of Aurora.
Ben Kingsley will play legendary painter Salvador Dali in the biographical drama Dali Land. The film will be directed by Mary Harron, who recently helmed the critically-acclaimed Netflix series Alias Grace, said The Hollywood Reporter. Leslie Manville, who was recently nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actress for Phantom Thread, will portray Dali’s domineering wife and muse, Gala, in the film. The cast also includes actors Tim Roth as Dali’s right hand man, Captain Moore, and Frank Dillane, who will play a young art enthusiast. The film is set in New York and Spain in 1973.
Jake Gyllenhaal has been signed on to play legendary conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein in The American. Cary Fukunaga will direct the film, said The Hollywood Reporter. The project will be based on Humphrey Burton’s biography on Bernstein and will follow the exponential rise of the composer after conducting the New York Philharmonic when he was 25, all the while struggling with fame. His career boasts of penning the score for On the Waterfront and West Side Story. Gyllenhaal said it is “an incredible honour” for him to tell Bernstein’s story with his friend, director Fukunaga. “Like many people, Leonard Bernstein found his way into my life and heart through West Side Story when I was a kid. But as I got older and started to learn about the scope of his work.... As a man, Bernstein was a fascinating figure — full of genius and contradiction...” he said in a statement.
Fast and Furious star Vin Diesel has teased that the next instalment in the franchise will be “bigger” than its predecessor and might be set in Africa. During an interview on Today, the 50-year-old actor confirmed that Justin Lin, who helmed three films in the franchise, will return to direct the next two Fast & Furious films. “It does get bigger... I just got off the phone with Justin Lin, who is directing Fast 9 and Fast 10, and I can’t tell you how excited he is,” Diesel said. “We haven’t been to Africa, I can tell you that. And we are long overdue.”
Actor Cas Anvar is all set to star opposite Diane Kruger in The Operative. The espionage thriller will be helmed by Yuval Adler, who has also penned the script of the film, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Kruger, 41, will portray the role of an FBI agent who is recruited by Israel’s Mossad service to go undercover in Tehran. Anvar, best known for films such as Source Code and Room, will play Farhad, Kruger’s love interest. The story, adapted from the Israeli book The English Teacher, follows Kruger and Anvar’s characters who get caught up in a tangled web of deception and end up spiralling their relationship into a complicated situation that nearly ruins their lives. Filming on the project started in Israel, before shifting to Bulgaria and Germany.
