The upcoming Daniel Espinosa-directed thriller Safe House continues to fill out its cast. The film is said to be about a CIA safe house where criminals are detained, a young agent who acts as house sitter to the institution, and his attempts at moving a high profile criminal to another location once the house is under attack by a villainous organization. Denzel Washington was the first on board, playing the criminal who needs to get moved, and Ryan Reynolds signed up soon afterwards to play the young CIA agent. Now the rest of the cast is starting to come together as a start date looms. According to Deadline Kurpinova, Vera Farmiga has joined the cast, playing the CIA operative who supervises Reynolds’s character.  This choice was probably a no-brainer for the film’s casting agents as Farmiga has become something of a go-to whenever you need a slightly older, yet still attractive woman to play some sort of authority figure. Whether it be a doctor, or a successful businesswoman, or what have you, throw Farmiga in some business clothes and you’re good to go. Most recently she was seen in Source Code playing, you guessed it, a government agent. Say what you will about type casting, but Farmiga is a solid actress and playing these sorts of character roles is a great way to build a robust filmography and work with a lot of other great people. Plus, you have to appreciate the lady, because every time she gets cast in [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

The Green Lantern movie has an uphill battle from the start. Why? Because it’s not starring Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, the X-Men, or anyone remotely near that level of recognition to the average viewer. The first question many may ask when hearing there is a Green Lantern movie is “Why?” The second is probably “What?” or possibly “Who?” I’m willing to give The Green Lantern the benefit of the doubt and not just because I have a huge man-crush on Ryan Reynolds. Well okay, yeah, mostly because of that. And so far, much of what we’ve seen looks pretty good. The trailer was fun. And the costume is… Well… Uh…

What is Movie News After Dark? It ain’t messin’ with you, bub. You should know that up front. It’s only bringing you the best of the weekend’s news, tidbits and otherwise noteworthy items. It believes that you shouldn’t mess around either. That’s why it recommends reading it every single night before you go to bed. Today begins with a project that I know many of you are excited about, 20th Century Fox’s Deadpool. A perfect fit is Ryan Reynolds in the titular role, as are Zombieland writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick on scripting duties. This week the project got a director, effects artist Tim Miller, whose credits include X-Men, X2 and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. He has also served as the Inferno Supervisor (read: Guy Who is In Charge of Digital Explosions) on several other projects. That’s a pretty wicked line of work.

Looks like today will be the Saturday of DC Comics movies. First is was the Superman Blu-ray announcement, and now it’s a 4-minute reel of footage from the upcoming Green Lantern film that showed at WonderCon in San Francisco yesterday. Unlike the previously released trailer, this abridged series of clips explores more deeply the world of the Lanterns and places Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) on Oa in a very real way. Also, that suit is starting to look much better. The entire affair feels a lot less cartoony and more genuinely alien. As in, alien to our world, but not our universe. Consider this your warning shot: one of the movies of summer 2011 is almost here. Take a look for yourself right after the jump.

Here he is. Big and bold. Hal Jordan sporting a look that could break the arm of a truck driver and standing in front of an alien world. Warners has been trying its best to prove that Hal Jordan’s suit won’t make him look like a cheap Mardi Gras body paint enthusiast, and this new poster for Green Lantern actually goes a long way to help that out. It was also wise to show off the huge landscape in the background – what I can only assume is Oa with the green light beaming out of its secret meeting cavern to light the ways of time. Check it out for yourself:

We announced a year ago that Universal was pushing to get R.I.P.D. off the ground in a major way. If they can close Zach Galifianakis for a co-starring role, that ground is going to be a memory. According to the LA Times, Galifianakis is discussing playing the sidekick role to Ryan Reynolds’s Nick Cruz character – a man murdered who makes a deal to give a century of service to the Rest In Peace Department in exchange for the shot at revenge. Based on the Dark Horse comic by Peter Lenkov, the movie should have an action comedy and feature a lot of souls who don’t want to cross over just yet. This all re-raises some questions about Reynolds’s schedule. He’s said before that he would either do R.I.P.D. or Deadpool, but not both. If this ends up shooting this summer, does it kill Deadpool for Reynolds? Plus, even though David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers) isn’t directing R.I.P.D. anymore (Red director Robert Schwentke is), Reynolds is set to work with Dobkin this fall on The Change-Up which features him switching bodies with Jason Batemen so Batemen’s character can score with Olivia Wilde. Regardless of the other projects, R.I.P.D. is a flick I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. It’s a different brand of comic book movie, and it could be darkly comedic like a version of Lethal Weapon done by way of Constantine. Galifianakis makes a great addition.

It was almost a year ago that the biggest buzz from the Sundance Film Festival was a little film about a man trapped in a coffin for 90 minutes. It showed the most promise, but it unfortunately fizzled when Lionsgate put it into release last summer. But that shouldn’t stop you from watching it. And if you’re gonna watch it, nothing should stop you from watching it with a drink in your hand. Check out Ryan Reynolds buried alive in the middle of the Iraqi desert, and raise a glass to toast your own freedom.

Martin Campbell’s Green Lantern is DC’s big hope at finally being invited to the adult’s table alongside Marvel, so a lot is riding on this particular green superhero. Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) is a test pilot who fantasizes about The Last Starfighter and wishes a colored alien would come to take him away. His prayers are answered… kind of… and he finds himself in possession of a very special secret decoder ring and a destiny to help defend the universe. Along for the ride are his highly unbelievable pilot buddy Carol Ferris (Blake Lively), his slightly more believable bespectacled friend Thomas (Taika Waititi), and evil scientist Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard). Can Jordan become the hero the universe needs?

On Tuesday, Warner Bros. will unleash upon the web a first teaser trailer for next year’s superhero gamble, Green Lantern. I say gamble not because it’s bound to make or break the future of superheroes at Warners — they do still have one more Batman flick coming from Christopher Nolan — but because it’s the first non-Batman superhero flick of a new era. It’s an era that follows restructuring, retooling and the rethinking of how they will use the heroes in the DC Comics catalog. Like Jon Favreau’s Iron Man for Marvel, Lantern will set the tone for what is to come. Whether that means a slow build toward a big team-up movie or not is yet to be determined. But projects like The Flash and a long-gestating stab at Wonder Woman may hang in the balance. So the start of WB’s return to making big superhero movies starts here, with a preview of a trailer from Entertainment Tonight… What makes it most interesting is that while it’s got some silliness, there is certainly a bit of a spark in there. See what I mean after the jump.

In August, I was fortunate enough to trade the heat of Arizona for the heat and humidity of Louisiana in order to visit the set of The Green Lantern starring Ryan Reynolds, a ring that makes him powerful, Mark Strong, Blake Lively and Peter Sarsgaard. I can’t say much about the visit yet (because of the court order), and I wasn’t the only one there (which is why they added “conspiracy” to the charges), but the set visit did yield a ton of really cool information about the film, and FSR will be delivering it straight to your brain like no other site can. While you wait on pins and needles awaiting all that comic book goodness, check out these two pieces of concept art that you’ll only see here (and several other websites). They both feature the design of Oa – the planet where the Green Lantern Corps makes its headquarters – and they’re both worthy of hanging up on your wall next to your poster for The Last Starfighter: The Musical. Don’t let evil or these concept pieces escape your sight, and remember to click to make the images much, much bigger:

American truck driver Paul Conroy is having what you might call a bad day. After taking a contract in Iraq delivering supplies, his convoy gets attacked and he blacks out. When he awakens, it’s a clear case of out-of-the-frying-pan-and-buried-in-a-coffin. At his immediate disposal are a lighter, a cell phone, and a limited supply of oxygen. He receives a message on the phone that he must use the phone to muster together a $5 million ransom or be left to die. A brief synopsis, but one befitting of a film like this. Buried sounds like little more than a pitch film; selling itself solely on a gimmick. But when thinking of accusing the film of taking the easy road to getting greenlit, it is vital to remember that this man-in-a-box movie is precisely that: a man in a box. The simplicity of the concept is incredibly self-limiting and presents a challenge so seemingly insurmountable that Buried had a plethora of opportunities to fail. Fortunately for the audience, director Rodrigo Cortes and star Ryan Reynolds expertly navigated this minefield.

By the end of 2010, fans will see Olivia Wilde on House, in theaters for The Next Three Days and Tron: Legacy, and will hear more about her role in Cowboys and Aliens. She’s going to be everywhere, and that’s not even counting television appearances, magazine photo shoots, and co-starring roles in dreams. Now, she’ll appear alongside Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds for The Change Up – a film that sees uptight Bateman switch bodies with slacker Reynolds for the record-breaking 2,000th body changing movie. The best possible outcome? A twist ending where Batemen finds himself permanently stuck inside Jodie Foster’s body.

If you are anything like me — and I hope, for the sake of those around you, that you are not — then you only read Film School Rejects for the pictures. The words within the articles can sometimes be very difficult to decipher. Especially when we let Landon “Thesaurus-saurus” Palmer out of his cage. It’s that college reading level writing that keeps us locked in our niche (read: readership of 12. Hi Mom!). And for most readers (and site publishers), it makes all of our stuff pretty inaccessible. But there are the pictures… With that in mind, I’d like to focus this entry of The Week That Was on the articles with the best pictures. I’ve also thrown in a few with some fancy wordiness, for good measure. Please enjoy and click around on all of the stuff you missed earlier in the week while you were slowly re-reading Culture Warrior for the 35th time.

It’s a beautiful day in the land of movies when a Sundance favorite announces that they’ll be at Fantastic Fest amongst the diaper-wearing ninjas, the drunken monsters from outer space, and the people sewn together mandibles to glutes. Director Rodrigo Cortes and Ryan Reynolds will be in attendance of the September 23rd screening of Buried, the movie that features him buried alive inside a coffin for what might be the entire run time. However, if you can’t wait that long to see the film, the Alamo Drafthouse is sponsoring an incredibly unique screening of Buried the weekend before. How can they afford to screen it before the big Austin premiere? Because they’ll only be screening it for four people. And those four people will be buried while seeing it.

“It’s a great script and a great property,” an enthusiastic Robert Rodriguez told The Los Angeles Times when asked about the draft of Deadpool from Zombieland scribes Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. The project, which is still slated to star Ryan Reynolds as the “merc with a mouth,” has been on and off the backburners at Fox ever since X-Men Origins: Wolverine released at the beginning of last summer. One thing standing in its way: Ryan Reynolds is a hot commodity. He’s just wrapped shooting on Green Lantern for Warner Bros., where the studio is already developing not one, but two sequels. But while Reynolds is not only wrapped up in Lantern, but about a half-dozen other projects, the likes of Rodriguez does present an interesting proposition.

Ryan Reynolds last suited up for a superhero film in a red sleeveless shirt that left his arms cold enough to make him sarcastic about everything. The speculation was that, since Deadpool was one of the few bright spots of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Reynolds and the Merc with a Mouth would get their very own stand alone movie. It seemed like a foregone conclusion, especially considering the popularity of the character, but with Reynolds trading the red tank top for a green CGI body suit, it might leave Deadpool out in the cold. A Deadpool movie? Not if Green Lantern has anything to say about it.

Earlier today I was reading CHUD, where Devin Faraci cited Warner Bros.’ upcoming superhero flick Green Lantern as one of the “losers” of Comic-Con, with the film’s lack of footage bested by superhero counterparts from Marvel, namely Thor and Captain America. And while that is an interesting sentiment, and one that I’m sure doesn’t come only from Faraci, I’m still holding onto the excitement around Green Lantern. Call it a product of my Comic-Con absence, but I will continue to hold this film as one of my most anticipated 2011 releases. Mainly because it is well cast, has been placed in the hands of a more than capable director, and the script reads like something balanced with the pace of Jon Favreau’s Iron Man and the visual promise of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek. And that’s one hell of a one-two punch. I’m still excited. And you should be, as well. Especially when you click through the jump and find a few lovely new teaser posters, which were released today by Warner Bros.

Along with their very cool booth at Comic-Con, the folks at Lionsgate are looking to generate some heat and invoke more Hitchcock references with a new trailer for Buried, the movie that sees Ryan Reynolds buried alive for the entirety of its run time. The new trailer (seen after the jump) reveals much more of the plot, including some of the obstacles that get in between Reynolds’ character and his escape. But there’s still plenty of mystery. In my review from Sundance, I applauded the film for being “an interesting and bold piece of filmmaking.” It shows a great deal of potential in director Rodrigo Cortes. However, I was not then (nor am I now) convinced that it will catch the eye of the mainstream. This new trailer may help, but only time will tell. Check out the synopsis and trailer after the jump…

Next week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly was supposed to lead with the Mel Gibson story. I’m sure you’ve heard about it: apparently he said some things that didn’t go over well with the rest of the world, or something. But instead, word on the street is that fans of comic flicks will get a pre-Comic-Con look at Ryan Reynolds in his fully rendered costume for Warner Bros.’ Green Lantern. Footage is expected to screen in San Diego, but it’s likely that the EW cover will be online by mid-week (the issue hits news stands Friday). This is exciting, as the Reynolds Lantern look will be much talked about. Hopefully it doesn’t earn the same reaction as the costumes from Thor. That didn’t seem to go over so well.

According to sources close to the project, the offer is out to Robert Rodriguez to direct Deadpool, the X-Men spinoff that would feature Ryan Reynolds reprising the role he played so well in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Fox has been developing the project for some time, seeing it as a great vehicle for Reynolds and an opportunity to further expand the X-Men universe.