After Thursday’s official announcement that Jennifer Lawrence had taken the lead role in Gary Ross’s The Hunger Games, there was speculation that she could well be out of the running for Oliver Stone’s drug thriller Savages (also starring Aaron Johnson.) Today Deadline have confirmed the speculation, announcing that Lawrence is out, but that Olivia Wilde has been thrown in to the mix.
Wilde‘s star is definitely rising, with positive reviews in last year’s hit Tron: Legacy and no fewer than four new films due out in 2011. Director Stone is however also looking at other names for the female lead in this adaptation of the Don Winslow novel, and there are certainly a whole host of up and coming young actresses who could successfully take on this kind of role.
Another name Deadline are adding in to the mix? Taylor Kitsch, who was on last year’s The Hollywood Reporter “New A-List” list, but an actor that we suggested still needed to prove he had the potential for the A List. This role, as one of the two pot growers (played by Kitsch and Johnson) who are forced against their will to work for a Mexican drug cartel when their shared girlfriend O is held for ransom, could be the one to take him from his forgettable role in X:Men: Wolverine to one in which he begins to prove his leading man potential.
Production for Savages is due to begin this summer, with a script from Shane Salerno and author Winslow.
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"Tron: Legacy"
"House M.D."
"Butter"
"Cowboys & Aliens"
