Jeff Daniels, who has Dumb and Dumber Too and The Newsroom's third season coming up, has joined Ridley Scott's The Martian. The cast keeps getting better with Matt Damon in the lead and Kate Mara, Jessica Chastain, and Michael Pena in talks. Adapted from Andy Weir's book, The Martian follows the first astronaut to ever set foot on Mars as he tries to survive being abandoned by his crew after an accident. [THR]
Disney has added Eric Bana to the cast of The Finest Hours, the period thriller starring Casey Affleck and Chris Pine. Directed by Craig Gillespie, the film "chronicles the massive rescue mission that’s launched when a pair of oil tankers split in two off the coast of Cape Cod in 1952." In a role that sounds similar to what he did in Lone Survivor, Bana will play the respected Coast Guard warrant officer who sends his men out on the dangerous rescue mission. [Deadline]
Game of Thrones' Richard Madden will join fellow HBO alum Idris Elba in Bastille Day, the James Watkins-directed action flick which "follows a rogue U.S. CIA operative who is tasked with interrogating and eventually making a young American man, who’s also a con-artist, 'disappear' in order to avoid embarrassment to the U.S. government after the American is linked as the prime suspect to an attack on the Paris metro. After several more attacks, the operative realizes the young American is innocent and may be the only link to the person actually orchestrating the terrorist attacks."
