CLOUD ATLAS (Cast News)

• CLOUD ATLAS

Hugh Grant

Hugh Grant has signed to star in Andy and Lana Wachowski andTom Tywker's Cloud Atlas, reports Screen Daily.

Based on the book by David Mitchell, the film will shoot inScotland, Spain and Germany starting September 16.

Grant joins a cast that includes Tom Hanks, Halle Berry,Hugo Weaving, Ben Whishaw, Susan Sarandon, Jim Broadbent and Bae Doona.

Mitchell's novel is described as follows:

"A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; adisinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-warsBelgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan's California; a vanitypublisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified "dineryserver" on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing thenightfall of science and civilisation -- the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear eachother's echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed inways great and small."

Weaving and Whishaw previously said that the entire castwill be playing multiple roles, including both male and female parts.