Some quickie casting news you should know about…

First, Charles S. Dutton has been cast in the FX network’s new drama pilot titled, Powers, which is based on the comics series of the same name by Brian Michael Bendis, whose credits include Marvel’s Avengers, X-Men, & Ultimate Spider-Man.

The series takes place in a world in which having superpowers is common; Dutton will play Captain Cross, the head of a homicide police department that investigates crimes involving people with superpowers.

Never heard of the comic, but this sounds interesting enough so far.

And secondly… Pam Grier went a little Twitter-happy yesterday, and posted the following tweets on her page:

– “Forgot, I have three films coming out, I play RZA’s mother in Man with iron fist, we filmed in Shanghai, China. He directed as well.” (Of course, we announced a few months back that she had joined the cast of Rza’s directorial debut, which is being produced by Eli Roth and Quentin Tarantino; but we were never told what her role in the film was. Now we know)

– And then this followed shortly after… “Another film, Mafia with Ving Rhames and Robert Patrick. One with Tom Hanks, Cederick the Entertainer and Taraji P. Hensen.” Some typos there on Ms Grier’s part (Should be “Cedric” & “Henson”), but we all know who she’s talking about. Anyway… We already knew about the project with Tom Hanks, Cedric and Taraji – the Larry Crowne movie, which also stars Julia Roberts; but I don’t think we’ve reported on the Ving Rhames/Robert Patrick Mafia movie. A quick search revealed practically nothing. It does have an IMDB page, which also lists Persia White of Girlfriends fame as one of its cast members (though Ving’s name is nowhere to be found there); however, there’s no synopsis. I Googled various combos of the director’s name (Ryan Combs), members of the cast, the movie title, etc, but got nothing! Granted I didn’t dig through countless search pages, but, still weird.

So, I can’t even tell you what the hell the film is about. It’s listed as being in post-production, with a 2011 release planned. I’m guessing it’s most likely a straight-to-dvd title. But if anyone out there has more info on Mafia, enlighten the rest of us.

And that’s it for now… Happy Saturday!