The Playlist

Kurt Russell Is Quentin Tarantino's Plan B Again, Replaces Kevin Costner In 'Django Unchained'

By Oliver Lyttelton
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September 30, 2011 11:55 AM
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6 Comments

And 'Kill Bill' Vet Laura Cayouette Comes On Board As WellWe hope Quentin Tarantino appreciates how reliable Kurt Russell is. The director originally cast Mickey Rourke as the psychotic Stuntman Mike in his indulgent nadir "Death Proof," but Rourke and Tarantino seemed to fall out before filming began. Russell, the iconic lead of '80s pictures like "The Thing" and "Big Trouble In Little China," stepped in, to great effect, and was easily the best thing in the film. Now, five years on, Russell seems to have repeated the favor.

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Kevin Costner Drops Out Of Quentin Tarantino's 'Django Unchained'

By Oliver Lyttelton
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September 16, 2011 1:01 AM
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11 Comments

After several films in a row where he's cast either relative unknowns ("Death Proof"), or scattered A-listers among an eclectic cast ("Inglourious Basterds"), Quentin Tarantino has been heading towards his starriest-ever cast for slavery Western "Django Unchained." Biggest-movie-star-in-the-world Will Smith might have turned him down in favor of a M. Night Shyamalan film (a decision that will likely come back to bite him in the ass), but 'Django' isn't suffering too badly: Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx took the title role, and has the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz and Samuel L Jackson all in support.

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Bill Paxton Joins Kevin Costner In Kevin Reynolds-Directed 'Hatfield & McCoys'

By Benjamin Wright
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August 17, 2011 7:00 AM
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3 Comments

Remember back in 2010, we told you that "Crazy Heart" director Scott Cooper was looking to take on a classic story of American folklore known as "The Hatfields and The McCoys"? Brad Pitt was set to produce and star alongside Robert Duvall, and apparently Walker was bringing his "Crazy Heart" composer T-Bone Burnett along for the ride. Well, it didn't happen, but it looks like Kevin Reynolds, the director of the infamous "Waterworld," may beat them to the punch according to Deadline. Bill Paxton has been cast as Randall McCoy, along with the previously announced Kevin Costner as the rival “Devil” Anse Hatfield. This version of the historic rivalry of the Hatfield and McCoy families that almost brought about another Civil War is set to be a television miniseries on the History Channel instead of a sprawling film.

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Kevin Costner In Talks To Be Leonardo DiCaprio's Henchman In Quentin Tarantino's 'Django Unchained'

By Oliver Lyttelton
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July 18, 2011 7:23 AM
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21 Comments

Quentin Tarantino may not have landed the biggest movie star on the planet, Will Smith, for his controversy-bomb slavery Western "Django Unchained," but that doesn't mean he's starving for A-listers: Jamie Foxx has taken over the title part, originally intended for Smith, while Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz is going to be Dr. King Schultz, Django's pal and mentor, Leonardo DiCaprio will take on the principle villain (and appears to be locked in now), slave-trader Calvin Candie, and Samuel L. Jackson will be Candie's principal house slave, Stephen. And now, another big name has signed on, making the film perhaps Tarantino's most traditionally starry to date.

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Viggo Mortensen Won't Play General Zod In 'Superman: Man of Steel'

By Oliver Lyttelton
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March 22, 2011 1:45 AM
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6 Comments

Zack Snyder Says That Film Is His 'Most Realistic' Movie, Temporarily Forgetting Gritty Documentary-Style Realism Of 'Legends of the Guardians: The Owls Of Ga'Hoole' While the world and their wife are currently debating the role that Joseph Gordon-Levitt will be playing in "The Dark Knight Rises" (we don't want to add to the fuss, but we met someone down at the pub last night who swore up and down that he'll be King Tut), Zack Snyder is quietly assembling his cast for the other big DC Comics movie of 2012, "Superman: Man of Steel." British actor Henry Cavill landed the title role at the start of the year, and Diane Lane and Kevin Costner have been cast (perfectly, it should be said) as his adoptive parents, Martha and Jonathan Kent.

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Kevin Costner Confirmed For Pa Kent In Zack Snyder's 'Superman'

By Kevin Jagernauth
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March 17, 2011 12:31 PM
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1 Comment

Just a few weeks after it was first rumored, it looks like Clark Kent is getting a Dad.

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Viggo Mortensen Being Courted To Play General Zod In Zack Snyder's 'Superman'

By Oliver Lyttelton
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February 26, 2011 3:17 AM
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7 Comments

Kevin Costner Confirmed To Be Up For Jonathan KentIt's not so long since we speculated on the choice of villain in the upcoming Zack Snyder-helmed, Christopher Nolan-produced reboot of "Superman"; with Henry Cavill being picked to play the man of steel, it seemed like the next logical step for his adversary to appear, but, despite a number of names cropping up in rumors, it was never entirely clear which villain from the character's 80-year history would be facing off against Clark Kent's alter ego. But, breaking last thing on Friday night, we seem to have an idea of not only who the antagonist will be, but also the actor that seems to be leading the pack to play him.

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Kevin Costner Joining Zack Snyder's 'Superman'?

By Kevin Jagernauth
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February 21, 2011 7:24 AM
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9 Comments

Alright, Zack Snyder, you're throwing us for a goddamn loop with this one. Updated: Latino Review says if Costner gets this role, and it sounds like he might, that he'll play Pa Kent, Superman's earth-dad, Jonathan "Pa" Kent.

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Review: 'The Company Men' A Bland, Out-Of-Touch Look At Job Loss

By Kimber Myers
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January 20, 2011 4:04 AM
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2 Comments

“The Company Men,” aka “The Supposed Problems of Unsympathetic Rich People” or “Good Actors Stuck in a Mediocre Movie,” tries to be timely, but it’s as out of touch as Pat Buchanan. It aims for “Up in the Air”-level relevance and poignancy with its plot centering on layoffs at a New England company, but it’s more likely to garner yawns than tears. What’s worse is that this isn’t a substandard movie with an equally substandard cast. Instead, first-time feature director John Wells has somehow managed to attract top-level talent Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Cooper, and Maria Bello (and Kevin Costner).

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Exclusive: Kazakh Director Akan Satayev Says Kevin Coster In Talks For Upcoming Historical Epic

By Kevin Jagernauth
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December 23, 2010 1:55 AM
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0 Comments

We recently talked with director Akan Satayev, the helmer behind the Kazakhstan official foreign language film entry "Strayed." The picture is a unique entrant in the foreign language race, an unusually genre based film that's a little hard to explain and falls somewhere between David Lynch and Alfred Hitchcock; telling the enigmatic, very visual story of a man who gets stuck on a country road with his wife and son only to encounter something far stranger than he ever expected. It's a film we never would have thought to come from Kazakhstan as it has much more in common with European arthouse fare, but when we asked the director what he was up to next, we got a little bit of a surprise.

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