* Tommy Lee Jones has called in all his favors to assemble a terrific cast for his next directorial effort, The Homesman. Jones will also write and star in the film with Meryl Streep, Hilary Swank, John Lithgow, and Tim Blake Nelson joining him in the story of an outlaw who joins a pioneer school teacher escorting three mentally unstable women from Nebraska to Iowa. The latest addition to the cast is Hailee Steinfeld, who is more than familiar with the Old West setting having made her breakthrough in True Grit. She'll play a poor, bare foot teenager named Tabitha Hutchinson. Jones' Lincoln co-star James Spader has also come aboard as a swindler. Jones last directed the HBO film The Sunset Limited. [Deadline]
* Measuring up to the immensely talented Naomi Watts isn't easy, even for actors who have been around much longer than Tom Holland, her young co-star in The Impossible. After making quite the splash opposite her in that harrowing tsunami drama, Holland will now join Chris Hemsworth in Ron Howard's In the Heart of the Sea. Based on the book by Nathaniel Philbrick, the incredible true story is said to have influenced Moby Dick, and chronicles the doomed 1820 voyage of whaling vessel, The Essex. Holland will play an aspiring whaler named Young Nickerson.
* Now that all of the Jane Got a Gun drama appears to have quieted down, new director Gavin O'Connor is bringing in some of his friends to help the production go smoothly. He's bringing in his Warrior and Miracle co-star Noah Emmerich to play Natalie Portman's husband in the western. Joining Joel Edgerton and Bradley Cooper, the story centers on a woman whose outlaw husband returns home riddled with bullets after turning on his old gang. When they come looking to finish the job, she turns to a gunsglinging ex-lover for help. [Deadline]
