Jason Clarke to lead Kathryn Bigelow's Kill Bin Laden; Tom Hardy, Rooney Mara, Idris Elba circling roles

With the recent news that Kathryn Bigelow's Seal Team 6 film, Kill Bin Laden, had been bumped back from it's October 2012 release date possibly into the following year, the first thing that crossed my mind was that there was no way Joel Edgerton(Animal Kingdom) would still be able to star in it. He's become such a sought after actor since the initial announcement was made that his dance card is all but booked up. Add to that the fact that Warner Brothers is looking at him to star in either Steven Soderbergh's The Man From U.N.C.L.E., or Noam Murro's 300: Battle of Artemisia, and what you have is an open door for another rising star to take his place. It looks like that's exactly what has happened.

Deadline reports that Jason Clarke, Edgerton's co-star in The Great Gatsby, is the first to officially join the film as a terrorist hunter working for the U.S. who joins the hunt for Bin Laden. When Mark Boal first started work on the script, the story was to detail merely the hunt for the terrorist leader, but plans changed when Bin Laden got a bullet in his eye like Moe Green.

The focus has been so squarely on Edgerton for the last few months that little else is known about what is being looked for in terms of casting. It looks like the film will be more of an ensemble, and Bigelow is aiming high according to her wishlist. Tom Hardy, Rooney Mara, Idris Elba, Jennifer Ehle(Contagion), Guy Pearce, and Nina Arianda(Midnight in Paris) are all said to be eying roles.

Clarke and Hardy will star together next in John Hillcoat's The Wettest County in the World, which also features Pearce. Pearce had a small part in Bigelow's The Hurt Locker. Ehle was the breakout performer in Steven Soderbergh's Contagion, so I definitely hope to see her get involved. Obviously, scheduling is going to be a major factor with all of these folks, so we'll see what happens as production is due to kick off early next year.