De Niro Tumbles Over Edge: After less than a week on set, Robert De Niro has peaced out from Martin Campbell’s Edge of Darkness, a drama starring Mel Gibson about an operative sent to clean up murder evidence. “Sometimes things don’t work out; it’s called creative differences,†explained a spokesman for De Niro, shrugging it off with his best De Niro impression. [Variety]
Denzel Books Gig: Denzel Washington will topline Book of Eli, a “post-apocalyptic drama†to be directed by From Hell’s Allen and Albert Hughes. Story follows a lone hero in a not-too-distant future who must fight his way across America because he alone knows the only thing that can save society. (Spoiler alert: it’s Obama.) [Variety]
Hiring Spree: Martin Landau, Steve Zahn, and Steve Buscemi have joined Ron Livingston in Raul Sanchez Inglis’s The Company Men, the story of a collapsing toy company. They might be redesigning their toys as weapons of war to win a huge defense contract and keep their company afloat, but not if Robin Williams has anything to say about it! [HR]
Breaking Forecast: Snow: Prom Night’s not unattractive actress Brittany Snow is in negotiations to star in Breaking the Girl for Myriad Pictures, directed by But I’m a Cheerleader’s Jamie Babbit. When a betrayed co-ed befriends a fellow student with a nemesis of her own, they plot to kill each other’s enemies, Strangers on a Train style. We’ve been waiting to see Snow do some murderin’ since she let us down in the falsely advertised, bloodbathless John Tucker Must Die. [HR]
Strong a Homie: Guy Ritchie told our BFFs at ComingSoon that he’s cast Body of Lies’ Mark Strong in his Sherlock Holmes movie. Not opposite Robert Downey Jr., however, as Ritchie and producer Joel Silver are still on the “Watson Hunt.†We imagine Russell Crowe must be throwing away all those Guy-Russell friendship bracelets he made last week at summer camp. [ComingSoon]
Pellington Finds Solace: The Mothman Prophecies’ Mark Pellington will direct New Line’s mystery thriller Solace, the story of a doctor with psychic powers who helps the police track down a serial killer. While debate over psychic powers rages in the scientific community, physicists agree that “New Line must have discovered a wormhole to the year 1991 that allows them to release this movie back when people saw dumb shit like this.†[Variety]