The Random: Natalie Portman, Captain Marvel, Kristen Stewart as Jean Seberg, Native Son, The Grudge, Luke Cage, Boar and more

– Kristen Stewart has been cast as actress Jean Seberg (Saint Joan,Bonjour Tristesse,Breathless, The Mouse That Roared) in the independent political thriller Against All Enemies. Jack O’Connell, Anthony Mackie, Margaret Qualley and Colm Meaney are also starring. Benedict Andrews is directing from a script by Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse. The story centers on attempts by the FBI to discredit Seberg through its Cointelpro program in retaliation for her support of the Black Panther Party. Those efforts included creating a false story in 1970 that the child Seberg was carrying was not fathered by her husband, but by a member of the Black Panther Party. Mackie will portray a civil rights activist and O’Connell has been cast as an FBI agent assigned to surveil the actress. Seberg acted in dozens of films including She died in 1979 in France, with authorities ruling her death a suicide – Variety

– The top image shows Crispin Glover in Lucky Day written and directed by Roger Avary – Red (Luke Bracey), a safe cracker who has just been released from prison, is trying to hold his family together as his past catches up with him in the form of Luc (Crispin Glover), a psychopathic contract killer who’s seeking revenge for the death of his brother

– Sir Ridley Scott is in talks to direct Queen and Country at Fox, the spy thriller based on the Eisner award-winning graphic novel by Greg Rucka. Set in the fictional British Secret Intelligence Service, “Queen and Country” centers on an operative named Tara Chace, a top British intelligence agent who is used as bait to draw out an international terrorist after an attack in London. The hit series ran for 32 issues from March 2001 to August 2007. “Queen & Country: Operation Broken Ground” won the 2002 Eisner Award for Best New Series – The Wrap

– Miranda July (The Future) is working with Annapurna and Plan B to start production on her latest film in late May. The film follows the story of Old Dolio and how her world is turned upside down when her criminal parents invite an outsider to join their biggest heist yet. The project will be July’s third film and first she will not star in. Her feature, Me and You and Everyone We Know, which July wrote, directed and starred in, won the Camera d’Or at Cannes and a Special Jury Prize at Sundance.

– Annabella Sciorra (Jungle Fever, The Sopranos) has joined the second season of Marvel’s Luke Cage. Sciorra will play Rosalie Carbone, a dangerous downtown criminal underworld power player with an eye, and an agenda, toward Harlem. Sciorra joins returning cast members Mike Colter (Luke Cage), Simone Missick (Misty Knight), Alfre Woodard (Mariah Dillard), and Theo Rossi (Hernan ‘Shades’ Alvarez). All 13-episodes of Season 2 of “Marvel’s Luke Cage” will premiere on June 22, 2018, exclusively on Netflix – Marvel

– A24 has acquired the worldwide rights to the adaptation of the 1940 Richard Wright novel Native Son. The film was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks and will be directed by conceptual artist and photographer Rashid Johnson. Native Son takes place in present day Chicago, with Ashton Sanders in final negotiations to take on the iconic role of Bigger Thomas. The remaining cast in negotiations to join the film features Margaret Qualley, Nick Robinson, KiKi Layne and Bill Camp . Award-winning cinematographer Matthew Libatique (Black Swan, Straight Outta Compton) will be the director of photography – A24

– Nelson Carvajal put together this mashup video.

ALL THAT JEDI (Mashup of STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI and ALL THAT JAZZ) from Nelson Carvajal on Vimeo.

– DeWanda Wise is no longer attached to Disney’s Captain Marvel, the MCU superhero tentpole that stars Brie Larson. Scheduling conflicts with her Netflix series She’s Gotta Have It are said to be the reason – Deadline

– Academy Award-winner Jordan Peele is re-teaming with comedy partner Keegan-Michael Key for Netflix’s stop-motion feature Wendell and Wild, directed by Henry Selick. Key and Peele will voice the titular scheming demon brothers forced to face-off against their arch-enemy in order to earn their way out of hell. Selick is writing the script with Peele, who won the original screenplay Oscar for “Get Out,” and Clay McLeod Chapman, from an original story by Selick – Variety

– Showtime has announced that Justin Kirk (Weeds) has been cast in a recurring role in the upcoming Showtime half-hour comedy Kidding. Kirk joins Golden Globe winner Jim Carrey, along with Oscar, Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Catherine Keener (Get Out), Oscar, Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon) and Judy Greer (Married). Kirk will play Peter, the new boyfriend of Jill (Greer) who is Jeff’s (Carrey) estranged wife. In Kidding, Carrey in his first series regular role in more than two decades plays Jeff, aka Mr. Pickles, an icon of children’s television, a beacon of kindness and wisdom to America’s impressionable young minds and the parents who grew up with him – who also anchors a multimillion-dollar branding empire. But when this beloved personality’s family – wife, two sons, sister and father – begins to implode, Jeff finds no fairy tale or fable or puppet will guide him through this crisis, which advances faster than his means to cope. The result: A kind man in a cruel world faces a slow leak of sanity as hilarious as it is heartbreaking.

– Demian Bichir joins Andrea Riseborough in Sony’s new take on the horror film The Grudge. Nicolas Pesce is on board to direct from his own script. Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert will produce for Ghost House, with Nathan Kahane and Erin Westerman executive producing for Good Universe alongside Schuyler Weiss, Roy Lee, and Doug Davison. “We are so excited about this new adaptation,” Raimi said. “We went back to the original source material to deliver a relentless supernatural thrill ride that explores the horrors of American suburbia.” – Variety

– Netflix has renewed popular sci-fi drama series Travelers for a third season. The show, starring Eric McCormack, originated in Canada, where it is produced and was initially commissioned by Showcase. Netflix came on board as a partner and a worldwide distributor outside of Canada for the first two seasons. Starting with Season 3, Netflix will be the exclusive first-run network for the series in every territory around the world, including Canada – Deadline

– Check out the poster for Boar directed by Chris Sun – In the harsh, yet beautiful Australian outback lives a beast, an animal of staggering size, with a ruthless, driving need for blood and destruction. It cares for none, defends its territory with brutal force, and kills with a raw, animalistic savagery unlike any have seen before.