UPDATED Casting: Unholy Parents and Wicker Chicks

Hey guys, it's Donnie...we've got some casting news here, and it looks like some really talented folks are jumping onboard two very interesting remakes. I'm not very familiar with either of the originals, which is to say that I know they exist, but haven't actually seen either of them, but I guess now I'm gonna have to...

First up we've got The Omen, a remake of the classic horror story of a loving couple that unwittingly adopts the anti-christ. Man, imagine going to day-care with the anti-christ. I bet he would have been that kid that knocks over your meticulous tower of blocks while you're turned the other way eating paste. Yeah. What a dick. Anyway, Gregory Peck and Lee Remick were Satan's legal guardians the first time around, but this time it seems that Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles will be in charge of demonic child-rearing. I love Liev Schreiber in just about everything he does, and Julia Stiles, well, she's been out of the game for a while in order to finish college, so at least I no longer immediately associate her with teenage tripe. I've actually always had a fondness for her. I think she has a certain poise and maturity about her work, she just seems to do a lot of really crap movies. John Moore (Flight of the Pheonix) is set to direct, and (HERE'S THE UPDATE!) there's a rumor floating about that young Josh Hutcherson, who's about to make a killing with Zathura and Little Manhattan, may be playing the child of evil forebearers, although this is unconfirmed as of yet. Omen is scheduled to hit on 6/6/06 (aren't marketing folks clever?) so they better get crackin'.

We can also look forward to a remake of The Wicker Man, the underground classic about a cop, a cult and a large flammable guy made of excess basket material. This flick was already on my radar cuz it stars Nic Cage (hopefully the good version and not his evil twin) and it's directed by Neil LaBute, one of my favorite playwrights of all time. This guy understands the pain of the human condition to a frightening degree and he rarely fails to deliver in both his written works and the handful of films he's directed up to now. Well, Leelee Sobieski and the amazing Ellen Burstyn have joined the party as a barmaid and a cult leader, respectively. Sobieski, aka Helen Hunt's own personal Mini Me, is a pretty solid actress who makes some really interesting choices both in her work and her choice of projects. She's worked with both Stanley Kubrick and Dr. Uwe Boll, probably the single best and worst filmmakers of the latter half of the twentieth century. Burstyn, well, she was absolutely ROBBED of the Oscar for her work in Requiem For A Dream, the greatest female performance I have ever seen on film, by Julia fucking Roberts and her middling Erin Crockoshit. I'll watch Burstyn in just about anything short of Secrets Of The Ya Ya Sisterhood, especially since no one in the sisterhood ever shows the secret of their Ya Yas.