Sir Ridley Scott’s Prometheus has found its leading man (and love interest for Noomi Rapace), while the vampire flicks Underworld 4: New Dawn and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter have filled pivotal main and supporting roles in their respective casts.
Filming has already begun on the fourth installment/second sequel in the Underworld franchise (check out set pics in our movie image roundup). Shooting on both Scott’s Alien spin-off and director Timur Bekmambetov’s bloody pseudo-biopic will be getting underway this month as well.
Deadline has confirmed that Logan Marshall-Green will star in Prometheus as Holloway, appearing alongside Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, and a trio of supporting players as crew members on a (presumedly, doomed) space ship. Jonathan Spaiht’s original script for the project was reworked by Damon Lindelof, whose new draft pleased Fox officials and paved the way for Scott’s return to the sci-fi genre to become a spinoff rather than prequel to his classic film, Alien.
Marshall-Green’s resume includes stints on TV shows like 24, The O.C., and Dark Blue, but his most recent film role was that of the mechanic-with-a-dark-past in last year’s Devil. So he has a bit of onscreen experience with handling a life-threatening situations while being trapped in an enclosed space – and that scenario will likely pop up again in Prometheus.
Michael Ealy didn’t have much to do in last year’s Takers other than play the sweet-eyed brother to Chris Brown and boyfriend of Zoe Saldana. He’ll get his chance to shine in the upcoming Underworld 4: New Dawn, which Deadline refers to as Underworld 3D (for obvious reasons).
Ealy will star in the new Underworld flick as a police detective who starts out hunting down Kate Beckinsale’s vampiress Selene, but eventually joins forces with the pale-faced warrior gal on her quest to stop BioCom from producing a race of super Lycans.
Sci-fi/fantasy aficionado J. Michael Staczynski (who more recently worked on the screen story for Thor) penned the fourth Underworld movie, which is being helmed by Swedish filmmaking duo Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein. As mentioned before, production has already commenced in Vancouver.
Original reports pegged Robin McLeavy as playing Mary Todd, loyal wife to Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter‘s titular president, but that role ended up being snagged by Mary Elizabeth Winstead in the end. It turns out McLeavy will actually take on the part of Honest Abe’s dear mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln.
It’s poor Nancy’s death at the hands of a bloodsucking monster (not Trent Reznor) that inspires a young Abe Lincoln (Benjamin Walker) to devote his life to wiping out vampires, and eventually leads him to become the 16th President of the United States as well.
With Bekmambetov at the helm and Tim Burton producing, expect the film to be quite the stylish but gory period action romp.
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Underworld 4: New Dawn arrives in theaters on January 20th, 2012.
Prometheus will hit theaters on June 8, 2012.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter will be in theaters on June 22, 2012.
