Raccoons Attack: Jacob Estes’s dark comedy The Details, the director’s first movie since 2004’s Mean Creek, is a go. It stars James McAvoy and Elizabeth Banks as a couple whose disagreements over how to deal with an infestation of raccoons in their backyards leads to an escalating chain of events. The movie also features Laura Linney and Anna Friel as, we’re just going to assume, a bumbling pair of animal-control officers. [Variety]
The Scone is Next: Robert De Niro and Edward Norton have joined the cast of the psychological thriller Stone, the first project from the newly formed Mimran Schur Pictures. The movie, directed by John Curran and written by Angus MacLachlan, centers on the relationship between De Niro’s character, a corrections officer, and Norton’s, a convicted arsonist. Following 2001’s The Score, this is the second film in Norton and Deniro’s celebrated “movies that start with an ‘S’ and have a long ‘O’ sound†trilogy. [HR]
When’s the Are You Afraid of the Dark? Adaptation Coming?: Katie Holmes will star in Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, a “Guillermo Del Toro Presentation†co-scripted by Del Toro and to be directed by one of his protégés, the former comic-book artist Troy Nixey. The feature is based on a 1973 ABC made-for-TV movie about a young girl who moves in with her father and his girlfriend and finds they are sharing the house with devilish creatures. Did they meet them through — wait for it, wait for it — Craigslist? [Variety]
Mob Movie: Ray Stevenson, Val Kilmer, and Christopher Walken are all set for The Irishman, based on the real story of seventies gangster Danny Greene. Stevenson will play Greene, an Irish-American whose battles with the mob in seventies Cleveland led to a nationwide turf war that greatly harmed the mafia. Walken will play the loan shark and nightclub owner Shondor Birns and Kilmer will play a cop who befriends Greene. Sounds awesome, right? Beware — Tara Reid, whose Dundee Entertainment is co-producing, is tangentially involved with the project. [HR]
The People’s Champ: Dwayne Johnson will move away from his recent family fare with Faster, an action-drama to be directed by Phil Joanou. Johnson will play an ex-con hell-bent on avenging his brother, killed ten years earlier during a botched heist. Apparently he’s also a lazy ex-con hell-bent on revenge because, ten years? [Variety]
Form Like Voltron: The creative team behind Robot Chicken — Tom Root, Matthew Senreich, and Seth Green — will launch another stop-motion animation series, Titan Maximum, on Adult Swim in September. Maximum will revolve around a group of hotshot pilots who defend Saturn’s moon, Titan; when they combine their spaceships, they form the giant robot Titan Maximum. Root explains: “Titan Maximum is about what would really happen if a team of idiot kids was in charge of a six-story-tall robot.†[HR]