Dominic Cooper (The Devil’s Double) has signed on to star in Cities, replacing Clive Owen (Closer) in the lead role.

Cooper will appear opposite Kirsten Dunst (Spider-Man), Orlando Bloom (Elizabethtown), and Anil Kapoor (Slumdog Millionaire) in the international thriller.

Cities intertwines the stories of characters around the globe, including a New York hedge fund manager, a Mumbai police officer and a couple who are house-hunting in London.

Roger Donaldson is attached to direct from his own screenplay.

Filming is expected to get underway over the course of the next few months.

Source: Variety

We’ve been sent a rather intense clip from Justice, the new film starring Nicolas Cage and Guy Pearce. Lisa’s review of the film was posted an hour ago and judging from her words and this clip it appears to be superior Cage on offer this time around.

Cage and Pearce are joined by January Jones and this, is the synopsis,

Popular high school teacher Will Gerard (NICOLAS CAGE) lives a life of content domesticity with his beautiful musician wife Laura (JANUARY JONES). Until one night’s horrific events, turns their world upside down.

After Laura is violently attacked and left traumatised in hospital, Will is approached by a well-dressed stranger (GUY PEARCE) offering to dispense immediate justice to the attacker and save the couple from an emotionally traumatic trial. Distraught, Will accepts the proposal but soon learns justice comes at a price.

Yikes. Not one for the family then. But Cage and Pearce can pull out a decent performance when inspired and Jones, who has had a rough ride critically for her recent film appeareances will hopefully shine in this role.

Here’s the clip friends,

No stranger to staging well-paced crime thrillers, like The Bank Job, The Recruit and No Way Out, director Roger Donaldson is about as qualified as any to bring this gritty story of crime and revenge to the screen – all set in one of the most exciting cities in the US, New Orleans. But although most films cannot resist the seedy allure of the French Quarter – and this film is no exception in parts, Justice does try to delve into a more realistically captured but darker depiction.

Nic Cage stars as Will Gerard, a husband who enlists the services of a vigilante group, headed by its curious leader Simon (Guy Pearce), to help him settle the score after his wife, Laura (January Jones), is brutalised. However, Will gets involved way over his head and tries to get out of the deadly pact he has made. The trouble is whom can you trust?

While the film is a half-decent enough thriller with so many twists and turns it trips itself up at times, the basic thriller ingredients have been tried and tested a lot better before, so a good proportion of the film feels like a carbon-copy of others we’ve seen. Granted, the thrill for Cage fans is seeing their hero in a rather physical role, dodging traffic and hanging from underpasses that even leaves him rubbing his head (more than once, and usually in the car) in exasperation.

What is most intriguing is the film’s main idea of disenchantment in a wounded city still hurting from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, leading to self-served justice, and this gives the whole affair an empathetic but equally menacing edge. Cage is the ideal star to tap into this darker aspect.

Like Will, Cage has a crazed, risk-taking side that the New Orleans setting flatters and seems to nurture, and an increasingly erratic Cage is more than capable and watchable in this type of action role as he makes it his eccentric own. The issues come not from his portrayal, but from the complex – and sometimes irrelevant – labyrinth of subplots that Donaldson and writers feel are necessary to throw at him. With too much at play, other things naturally go unexplained.

Sadly, we only get to see a one-dimensional and frustratingly under-developed performance from Pearce, for example, with no explanation as to where his loyalties stem from – even though we understand that his character and others are designed to be as enigmatic as possible throughout to add to the intrigue. On the plus side, Jones, who normally adds the cutesy glamour to any scene, does some of her best work yet as the victim in the first half of the film, only to be sidelined in the rest as a pawn in the increasingly paranoid Cage dance with death. Still, it’s a vast improvement on her usual film roles, and one we’d quite like seeing her tackle again.

Justice is well staged at the start and has the presence to go far. It’s just the sum of its parts – like the random journalist murder subplot – don’t add up at times and make it feel somewhat disjointed. Cage fans are guaranteed a thrill at seeing him in action, with Ghost Rider elements of a mortal Blaze out to serve and protect the ‘ordinary man’ – and Cage is always satisfying in this type of ‘moral crusader’ role. It’s just a shame Donaldson’s film doesn’t fully realise that immense talent, having him running from pillar to post throughout – and making us rub our heads in anguish at times, too.

**½~~ (2.5/5)

Without wanting to get ahead of myself, this sounds like one of the most promising projects that I’ve read recently. Roger Donaldson’s latest film, Justice, starring Nicolas Cage, January Jones, and Guy Pearce, is out in cinemas here on 18^th November, and he’s already lining up a fantastic cast for his next feature, Cities.

Clive Owen (Children of Men) and Anil Kapoor (Slumdog Millionaire) are already attached, and The Playlist are now reporting that Kirsten Dunst (Melancholia) and Orlando Bloom (The Three Musketeers) are in talks to join too.

“[T]he film is described as a cautionary tale, blending three interlinking story lines—a New York hedge fund manager (Owen) chasing sex, money and power, a Mumbai cop investigating corrupt colleagues (one of whom is Kapoor) and their links to property speculators, and a young London couple finding it difficult to plant a foot on the property ladder. Dunst will play the character of Kate, in Owen’s storyline while Bloom’s role hasn’t been revealed, though we presume he’s one half of the London couple.”

Donaldson has co-written the film with long-time British director-producer, Glenn Wilhide, whose credits include The Royle Family and the Peter Morgan-scripted mini-series, Metropolis, and who makes his writing debut with Cities.

Kapoor was absolutely brilliant in Slumdog Millionaire and in the final season of 24, and Owen is pretty damn excellent in everything I’ve seen him in to date, so the original casting was enough to convince me of how good Cities would be. But now throw in Dunst and Bloom into the mix, and you can colour me ridiculously excited.

Dunst’s most recent turn in Melancholia may be a bit divisive – largely more because the film itself is divisive much more than her performance in it – but I thought it was incredible, and deserved every bit the Best Actress award it won her at Cannes this year. And though I’m yet to see Bloom’s most recent part in The Three Musketeers, I thought he was great in Black Hawk Down way back when, and of course in Pirates of the Caribbean and The Lord of the Rings since then, so I’m expecting good things from him too.

With such a great cast lined up and such an interesting premise, this is definitely showing a lot of promise already. It will be at the American Film Market this week looking for buyers, with production scheduled to start next spring, shooting in London, Mumbai, and New York. I have a really good feeling about this, and can’t wait to hear more about it.

On a less serious note, simply because I happened upon it whilst looking for an image to go with this article (and because it’s Movember now, so it’s somewhat appropriate), here’s a brilliant picture of Kirsten Dunst using Orlando Bloom’s hair as a makeshift moustache. If that doesn’t brighten your day, I don’t know what will.

Snaps of Scarlett Johansson have surfaced for a role which sees her use her female wiles in an altogether otherworldly premise.

In what sounds like a reworking of mid-nineties schlocky sci-fi/horror Species, The Avengers star is an extra terrestrial who takes the form of a beautiful woman as a cunning ruse to entrap human prey. Ooh err!

If you’re thinking the above doesn’t sound particularly promising, the good news is this sci-fi drama (entitled Under the Skin) is being directed by Sexy Beast’s Jonathan Glazer. The film marks his first big-screen outing since 2004’s underappreciated Nicole Kidman-headliner Birth, and based on a novel by the celebrated Dutch-born author Michael Faber, it’s safe to say this material will probably be as far removed from the aforementioned Roger Donaldson-directed creature feature as humanly possible.

Via Collider.

Last week, we saw the first trailer for Nicolas Cage & Guy Pearce’s new movie, Justice and now Momentum Pictures / Alliance have released the first UK poster for the movie. The movie also stars January Jones of Mad Men fame and hits UK cinemas 18th November.

Popular high school teacher Will Gerard (NICOLAS CAGE) lives a life of content domesticity with his beautiful musician wife Laura (JANUARY JONES). Until one night’s horrific events, turns their world upside down.

After Laura is violently attacked and left traumatised in hospital, Will is approached by a well-dressed stranger (GUY PEARCE) offering to dispense immediate justice to the attacker and save the couple from an emotionally traumatic trial. Distraught, Will accepts the proposal but soon learns justice comes at a price.

Click the poster below to enlarge.

Momentum Pictures / Alliance have released the first trailer for Nicolas Cage Guy Pearce and January Jones’ new movie, Justice which according to IMDb is / was called Seeking Justice in the US. This may be the title in the US or it’s an old title but I’ve confirmed that the title is simply ‘Justice’. It’s directed by Roger Donaldson and is set for release in the UK November 18th and after seeing this trailer, I’m looking forward to it.

Popular high school teacher Will Gerard (NICOLAS CAGE) lives a life of content domesticity with his beautiful musician wife Laura (JANUARY JONES). Until one night’s horrific events, turns their world upside down.

After Laura is violently attacked and left traumatised in hospital, Will is approached by a well-dressed stranger (GUY PEARCE) offering to dispense immediate justice to the attacker and save the couple from an emotionally traumatic trial. Distraught, Will accepts the proposal but soon learns justice comes at a price.

Some more casting news reaching us from Variety.com that the wonderfully named “Mad Men” star January Jones has joined Nicolas Cage in the bizarrely named “The Hungry Rabbit Jumps”.

Being directed by Roger Donaldson, he who directed Cocktail and the Bank job at both ends of his career, and having the current hit and mostly miss Cage on board I’m feeling it’s heading for averageness already but time will tell.

Produced by Tobey Maguire, James Stern and Ram Bergman the film is based on Nicolas cages character who after a crime is committed on his wife he enlists a vigilante group to help him settle the score with devastating consequences as he will owe them a favour in return.

An interesting sounding film that has all the potential for Cage to overplay, but possibly this is the one we’ve all been waiting for from Cage. Fingers crossed.