Ted Melfi's Hidden Figures is shaping up to be one of the most anticipated films of the year, as it centers on the female African-American mathematicians who aided NASA's first mission into orbit while coping with racial and gender prejudice. With Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Kevin Costner already on board, the latest addition is recording artist Janelle Monae. Monae will play the youngest of the women, Mary Jackson, with Henson as Katherine Johnson, Spencer as Dorothy Vaughan, and Costner as head of NASA's space program. Monae will make her on-screen feature debut in Barry Jenkins' Moonlight opposite Naomie Harris. [TheWrap]
If this were the '80s a film with both Charlie Sheen and Whoopi Goldberg would be a pretty big deal, now not so much. The longtime friends are set to join Nine Eleven, an indie drama centered on five people trapped in a World Trade Center elevator during the 9/11 attacks. The film is directed by Martin Guigui (Beneath the Darkness) and co-stars Luis Guzman, Wood Harris, and Olga Fonda. Goldberg was last seen in the small-town dramedy Big Stone Gap and Michael Bay's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Sheen hasn't been on the big screen since 2013's Machete Kills, in which he played the President of the United States. [Variety]
