* Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini swung and missed badly with the Kristen Wiig dramedy Girl Most Likely, somehow finding a way to waste the actress' comedic talents. So they're going to try something a little different, casting Hailee Steinfeld in the punk rock film, Ten Thousand Saints. Based on Eleanor Henderson's novel, the 1980s-set New York drama follows "Vermont teenager Jude, who moves in with his hippie dad in NYC after his best friend Teddy overdoses. There he falls in with the no drugs, no sex, no meat straight-edge hardcore punk scene of the East Village." Steinfeld will play Eliza, the mother of Teddy's child. [Deadline]
* After Blumhouse Productions scored another low-budget horror smash with The Purge, earning $89M at a cost of only $3M, a sequel was quickly green lit, although we knew it was coming long before then. Now the cast is starting to come together and it looks like the sequel go away from Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey's terrorized family. Deadline reports Frank Grillo will headline the film, which will bring back writer/director James DeMonaco. No other details are available except that we can expect the legalized violence to be unleashed June 20th 2014. Grillo will be seen next as Crossbones in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
* In case you missed it, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is sort of a big deal, banking $676M worldwide in just a couple of weeks. That bodes pretty well for the two-part finale, Mockingjay, which began casting some months ago and continues to do so. Robert Knepper (R.I.P.D.) is the latest to sign on, and while that's not a big deal the character he's playing may anger some fans of the novel. He'll play Antonius, someone who doesn't appear in any of Suzanne Collins' books and appears to be a totally new creation. What's up with that? He's apparently a villain working under the employ of President Snow. Knepper joins Julianne Moore and the cast of the prior films for Mockingjay Part 1 on November 21st 2014.
