STAR TREK (JJ Abrams set to Direct)

• STAR TREK 2

FINALLY!! We can announce that director JJ Abrams will be directing Star Trek 2.

JJ Abrams

Deadline’s report confirms all the rumours and speculation that the long development process combined with Abrams’ indecision about whether he really would take the job means that Paramount has decided to shove the Trek sequel from its original June 2012 release berth and offer the date instead to what is now apparently called G.I. Joe: Retaliation.

As to where the Enterprise and her crew will find a scheduling dock, that’s anyone’s guess. Right now it seems that shooting will kick off in January next year, with the aim of trying to either get it into late 2012 or summer 2013.

The studio has now picked up the cast’s contracts, which means that the likes of Chris Pine, Karl Urban, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin and Zoe Saldana will all be reporting for duty whenever this thing actually launches into warp speed.

TRANCE (Cast News)

• ROSARIO DAWSON WILL HAVE YOU IN A TRANCE

Rosario Dawson

The cast of Danny Boyle’s next film, Trance, just keeps getting better and better. The latest names poised to sign on? Rosario Dawson and Vincent Cassel.

We do know that James McAvoy (Professor X in the X-Men: First Class) will play an employee of an art auction house who acts as the inside man during a heist. The crime goes badly wrong and McAvoy ends up with amnesia about where the loot is being hidden. That leads his much more dangerous accomplice (Cassel) to try to crack the secrets out of him using a hypnotist.

Dawson, meanwhile, has signed up for the main female character, a woman who develops an odd relationship with both of them. Feeling like a return to Boyle’s Shallow Grave/Trainspotting roots, Trance will be shot with a frugal budget, before the footage is shelved as the director will concentrate on his London Olympic opening ceremony duties. Once he is done with that, he’ll pick Trance back up again and start editing in August 2012 ready for a March 2013 release.

HUGO - TRAILER

• HUGO - TRAILER

Hugo Cabret is an orphan boy living a secret life in the walls of a Paris train station. When Hugo encounters a broken automaton, an eccentric girl, and the cold, reserved man who runs the toy shop, he is caught up in a magical, mysterious adventure that could put all of his secrets in jeopardy.

JOHN CARTER - TRAILER

• JOHN CARTER - TRAILER

The film is based on the first story to feature John Carter, a character from A Princess of Mars, which was first serialized in 1912 and first published as a novel in 1917. John Carter is an American Civil War veteran who is transplanted to Mars (Barsoom) where he discovers a diverse planet whose inhabitants include 12-foot tall green barbarians. Formerly an Earthlike world, Barsoom became less hospitable to life due to its advanced age: as the oceans evaporated, and the atmosphere thinned, the planet devolved into partial barbarism with the inhabitants hardened and warlike, fighting one another to survive. Along his journey he meets Tars Tarkas and rescues a humanoid Red Martian princess, Dejah Thoris, from the belligerent four-armed Green Martians, whose respect he gains for his superior strength and fighting ability. He enlists the Green Martians' assistance in winning a civil war, and saves Mars from destruction when its atmosphere plant malfunctions.

GANGSTER SQUAD (cast news)

Ryan Gosling & Emma Stone 

• THE AMAZING, CRAZY, STUPID, GANGSTER SQUAD

The Amazing Spider-Man's Emma Stone is poised to reunite with her Crazy, Stupid, Love co-star Ryan Gosling in another Warner Bros. project, Gangster Squad.

Variety reports, "Stone is in line for the coveted role of Jean, a sharp-tongued siren caught in a love triangle with Gosling's character and Sean Penn, who portrays famed mobster Mickey Cohen."

The project would also reteam Stone with her Zombieland director, Ruben Fleischer.

In addition to Gosling, Penn and Stone, Gangster Squad's cast includes Josh Brolin, Anthony Mackie, Giovanni Ribisi and Michael Pena.

THE FROZEN GROUND (Cast News)

• THE FROZEN CON

                   Nicolas Cage                                                John Cusack

Nicolas Cage and John Cusack are likely to star in a feature entitled The Frozen Ground, based on the story of serial killer Robert Hansen. Deadline has the news, saying that Cusack would play Hansen with Cage the police officer who teams with an escaped victim to catch him.

Responsible for the deaths of somewhere between 17 and 21 individuals, Hansen lived in Anchorage, Alaska and, despite a somewhat troubled past, was married with two children and served as a well-known member of the community. After his conviction in 1983, it was theorized that, for years, Hansen had been kidnapping women and then releasing them into the desolate Alaskan wilderness to hunt them for sport.

Newcomer Scott Walker will make his feature film debut as both writer and director of the project. If Cage and Cusack do sign on, it will re-team the actors for the first time since 1997's Con Air.

G.I JOE 2 (casting news)

• G.I. JOE 2

Joseph Mazzello

Actor Joseph Mazzello (The Pacific, Jurrasic Park &The Social Network) is ready for service in G.I. Joe 2: Cobra Strikes.

Deadline says Mazzello will play Mouse, a character first reported as being in the film by What's Playing.

Mouse first appeared as part of Sgt. Savage and his Screaming Eagles, a mid-'90s toy and animated spin-off of G.I. Joe. Mouse has been described as "Morris L. Sanderson, a clumsy mountain of a man, and the team's head hacker." The slight Mazzello clearly doesn't fit the bill of being a mountain of a man.

G.I. Joe 2 begins filming soon in Louisiana. Channing Tatum, Dwayne Johnson, Adrianne Palicki and Ray Stevenson also star.