The Americanized live-action Akira received a green light from Warner Bros almost a month ago, with TRON: Legacy star Garrett Hedlund immediately mentioned as a frontrunner for a lead role.  Hedlund's involvement was confirmed not long thereafter, and with production scheduled to being in January or February of next year, casting is well underway on the adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo's 1988 anime masterpiece, which was based on his own sprawling Manga comic book series.  Now, we might know the next thoroughly Caucasian actor to join the cast, as Kristen Stewart has reportedly been offered the female lead in Akira.

Prepare your indignation over whitewashing casting, ladies and gentleman, because the lead in Akira is going to be played by a corn-fed white boy, despite still bearing the distinctly un-Caucasian name of Kaneda.  When the live-action adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo's manga series and landmark 1988 anime adaptation thereof had a different director months ago, a shortlist of potential leading men consisted of entirely white actors, upsetting a whole lot of fans.  Now that the project has finally received a green light under new director Jaume Collet-Serra, it's one of the actors on that list who will ride Kaneda's futuristic motorbike.  According to Variety, Garrett Hedlund is now in negotiations to play the lead role, after having been closely associated with it for weeks.

Horizons, the sophomore feature from Tron: Legacy director Joseph Kosinski, continues to move through pre-production at Universal Pictures, where it wound up after Disney opted to let the PG-13 science-fiction actioner go despite the attachment of Tom Cruise.  With Cruise set to play the lead character, the question became just which two beautiful younger women would play the big female roles in the film.  We know half the answer to that question, as Variety reports that Jessica Chastain has been cast in Horizons, while the second major female role remains uncast.

Horizons, director Joseph Kosinski's follow-up to his debut feature TRON: Legacy, has had a not-uneventful ride so far.  Before the TRON sequel hit theaters, Disney acquired the project, then titled Oblivion, in a heated bidding war.  In the middle of the design stage of pre-production, the studio decided that a big budget PG-13 science fiction actioner did not fit with their current strategy, so Kosinski shopped his would-be movie around and it pretty quickly landed at Universal Pictures.  Through pretty much the whole process, Tom Cruise has been on board to star, and now, with the project on the fast-track, Kosinski is testing actresses for the two lead female roles.  A shortlist of the actresses under consideration has emerged, and it includes no shortage of talented and beautiful women who might just share the screen with Cruise, along with a few salient details on the story and screenwriter.

In the build-up to the last December's release of Tron: Legacy, it was abundantly clear that Disney was hoping to kickstart a new franchise after the original Tron laid dormant for almost two solid decades.  Provided that the sequel performed up to par, director Joseph Kosinski seemed likely to return, along with screenwriters Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz.  After six months with little to no movement on another adventure in the Grid, Disney has hired a new writer, David DiGilio, to tackle a hypothetical third Tron film.

Tom Cruise has been associated with the science fiction actioner Horizons, aka Oblivion, since before director Joseph Kosinski's first feature film, Tron: Legacy hit theaters last December.  When Disney, which had been developing the film, opted not to proceed, Cruise came along with it as Kosinski and producers shopped it to other studios.  Deadline reports that with Horizons at Universal, Cruise has formally signed on to star in the post-apocalyptic film.

Whether he's subtly portraying real life figures like Tony Blair in The Queen, swinging a glowstick as a wild, androgynous program in Tron: Legacy, or menacing dreamboats as a vampiric overlord in the Twilight franchise, British actor Michael Sheen is remarkably adept at making small roles leave a big impression.  In his latest role, in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, he provides a pitch-perfect variation on the Allen-archetype of the condescending, pompous intellectual.  While Gil,the film's protagonist played by Owen Wilson, whimsically travels through time in the City of Lights, Sheen's Paul squires Gil's fiancee (Rachel McAdams) about town.  In a roundtable interview with IAR and several other outlets, Sheen talked about playing pretentious,  time-travel, storytelling, French First Lady Carla Bruni, and working with Woody Allen.  Be warned of spoilers

Officially, Joseph Kosinski holds the distinction of being the helmer behind the high-grossing feature directorial debut ever, though his first film, Tron: Legacy, was almost certainly the most expensive film from a first-time director.  Though Disney was looking to rebuild Tron as a modern franchise, that digital ship may have set sail on a CGI ocean, and Kosinski's second feature will most likely be Horizons, a big budget science fiction adventure to star Tom Cruise.  But he's also circling another sci-fi actioner, Archangel, as a probable follow up to Horizons.

A few weeks back, Disney basically said, "It's not you, it's me," to Joseph Kosinski's Horizons, formerly titled Oblivion, which it acquired in a heated bidding war last summer, well before Kosinski's feature directorial debut Tron Legacy hit theaters.  Since the House of Mickey and Kosinski are going to stay friends, though, Disney allowed to the director to see other studios and shop his ambitious science fiction project around town.  Well, it appears that Horizons may well have found a new squeeze at Universal Studios.

In what amounts to an amicable break up, Disney is abandoning its development of Horizons, formerly titled Oblivion, but is allowing director Joseph Kosinski to shop the project to other studios.  According to The Hollywood Reporter, there are multiple parties interested in the second film from the director of Tron: Legacy, including 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros, and Mandate.