Clooney Casts His Ballot for 'Farragut North'

George Clooney has been holding onto an option for the off-Broadway play Farragut North for a while, and Jo Blo says he's now ready to get started on it.

The play is "a political drama about campaign dirty tricks" written by Beau Willmon, a former Democratic political operative. Willmon wrote the play after working for the Howard Dean campaign in 2004. The story takes place in Iowa in the weeks before that state's Democratic caucuses. Though it has nothing to do with the plot of Farragut, Iowa in 2004 was the political Waterloo for Howard Dean. He placed third after charging out of the gates and in his concession speech, let out the Shriek Heard 'Round the World. He ended his campaign a month later.

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Marilyn Manson Leading Slasher Flick 'Splatter Sisters'

Comedy dream team Marilyn Manson and Evan Rachel Wood are teaming up for what Variety calls a "retro slasher film" titled Splatter Sisters. It's not one of those on-the-cheap, dropped on DVD vanity projects, either. The film will be backed by Money Never Sleeps producer Edward Pressman and David Gordon Green, who directed Pineapple Express.

The film is the first in a planed "sexploitation-serial-killer-slasher-road-movie circa 1989" franchise written by Adam Bhala Lough, who's written and directed some indie stuff and shorts, but this will be his first major project. Says Pressman, "Lough's unique talent and energy will make Splatter Sisters a very special and markedly commercial film." Wood, who hasn't been in a movie since last summer's Whatever Works, was supposed to play Mary Jane in that Broadway Spider-Man musical, but the production has been beset with loads of problems and both the actress and Alan Cumming, slated to play the Green Goblin, walked away from the stage play recently. So now that her dance card is free, she's starring with her fiance, the former Brian Warner.

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Starlets Featured in 'Vanity Fair' Hollywood Issue

Every year, Vanity Fair ushers in Oscar season with its Hollywood Issue, and several times over the past decade-and-a-half or so, the issue has featured some of the industry's fastest rising young leading ladies. And this is one of those years.

Click to Enlarge Pictured above (and below), in alphabetical order, are Abbie Cornish, Rebecca Hall, Anna Kendrick, Carey Mulligan, Amanda Seyfried, Kristen Stewart, Emma Stone, Mia Wasikowska, and Evan Rachel Wood. Two of them will be Oscar nominees this year (actually in just a few hours) - Kendrick and Mulligan. Most of the others have some pretty serious chops, too, although I'm not exactly sure if that's why they're gracing the cover of this magazine. I mean, Gabby Sidibe is going to get an Oscar nomination, too. I'm not judging, merely pointing it out. Since we're on the subject of Vanity Fair, pick up the book Vanity Fair's Hollywood to see the magazine's great history of photographing celebrities. These photos are pretty bland by comparison to some of those. There are some real classics in that book.

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Director Julie Taymor Unveils Broadway's Spider-Man

It will not be Jim Sturgess slinging webs on Broadway in the new comic book musical Spider-Man Turn of the Dark. Instead, director Julie Taymor (Across the Universe) has hired another young actor she recently cast in a film version of Shakespeare's The Tempest. Reeve Carney will play Peter Parker to Evan Rachel Wood's Mary Jane Watson, and here's a look at the 26-year-old actor.

In addition to acting, Carney is the lead singer of a band that features his last name, and is the final piece of the puzzle to the 2010 Marvel musical, which will open at the Hilton Theatre in New York in a few months. “Having recently finished shooting The Tempest with Reeve as the young prince, I am thrilled to cast him in an entirely different role as Peter Parker in Spider-Man," Taymor said in a statement. "When I first saw Reeve, he was performing with his terrific band Carney. The music of Bono and Edge requires an extraordinary talent— not only is Reeve a great rock and roll singer but his acting is equally fresh and authentic.”

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Redford's 'Conspirator' Fills Out Cast, Starts Filming

The Robert Redford historical drama The Conspirator has already begun filming with an eye on a 2011 release, to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. The film stars James McAvoy as a young military attorney assigned to defend Mary Suratt (Robin Wright Penn) and comes to believe she's innocent of plotting to kill Abe Lincoln.

Several notable new cast members have been added this week. First there was Justin Long, which seems like a bad fit, Tom Wilkinson, which does not, English actor Toby Kebbell, Alexis Bledell, Kevin Kline, and now Evan Rachel Wood. There's no word on exactly what characters each will be playing, but in some cases, I'm not sure it matters. For example: You've got Tom Wilkinson.

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