Today's Film News: He's Notorious

By Katey Rich

The casting for the Notorious B.I.G. biopic has been one of the more interesting and inspiring stories in moviemaking in the last year. Hundreds of hopefuls, many of them based in New York like the slain rapper, tried out for the role, going off a resemblance to the star and rapping talent rather than established fame. Now the part has been cast: Jamal Woolard will star in Notorious, alongside Angela Bassett, Derek Luke and Anthony Mackie. Woolard already had a small rapping career, and was famous for being shot before a radio appearance on the New York radio station Hot 97 and going on with the broadcast. The Hollywood Reporter writes that production will begin this month.

Jason Reitman has made his name as one of the funniest directors who doesn't make straight-up comedies, but that's about to change. He's signed on as a director for the Jim Carrey vehicle Pierre Pierre, which Variety describes as a "politically incorrect story" about an art thief transporting a painting from Paris to London. Reitman directed one of the most successful films of the last few months; Carrey hasn't had a hit comedy since 2003's Bruce Almighty. But hey, odd couples have made for great comedy in the past, so don't rule these two out just yet!

Kevin James is at work in pre-production for the comedy Mall Cop, but the younger, hipper and slightly less paunchy Seth Rogen is providing some competition. Rogen will star in Observe and Report, a comedy about a mall security guard who faces off against the local men in blue. It's written and will be directed by Jody Hill, who broke out at Sundance in 2006 with the upcoming kung fu comedy The Foot Fist Way. Variety tells us that, unlike the bulk of Rogen's work up to this point, Judd Apatow will not be a producer. Maybe now we can finally learn if it's secretly Seth Rogen who's out there minting money, and Apatow is just his straw man. Not likely, but possible!

And finally, the cast for next year's strangest Zac Efron vehicle keeps growing. "Men in Trees" star James Tupper will play Joseph Cotten in Me and Orson Welles, about the famed director's production of Julius Caesar several years before Citizen Kane. Cotten played the lead in the play, and went on to success as a star of Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons. Efron plays the "me" of the title, a teenager cast in Caesar; Claire Danes also stars in an undetermined role.