Texas-born starlet Olivia Hardt has been toiling around tinseltown for a few years now, playing small, but eye-popping, roles such as Hot Girl on HBO’s “Entourage,” Sexy Girl #3 on NBC’s “Las Vegas” and Pretty Lady on the telepic “The Beast.”
This year, however, Hardt is poised for superstardom with a new breakout part in Swamp Shark and Lake Placid 3 director Griff Furst’s new Syfy creature-feature Arachnoquake. OK … so it won’t be a blockbuster, but Hardt’s character does have a name this time (Petra) and the flick sounds like a blast.
Arachnoquake finds giant albino spiders on a feeding rampage in the city of New Orleans after being set free from the earth’s core by a massive earthquake. Hardt stars alongside Edward Furlong (Terminator: Judgement Day), Bug Hall (Mortuary) and Tracey Gold (“Growing Pains”).
Heather Graham (Boogie Nights) and Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix) will butt pretty heads in director Egidio Coccimiglio’s Compulsion, an American remake of the South Korean horror-comedy 301, 302.
The sexy duo will play feuding next door neighbors who are worlds apart in personalities. One is an antisocial recluse; the other an optimist and idealist. A confrontation occurs between the two and all hell breaks loose.
Compulsion is written by Floyd Byars (Masterminds) and costars Kevin Dillon (“Entourage”), Jean Yoon (Dream House), John Tokatlidis (Sweet Karma) and Joe Mantegna (“Criminal Minds”). The film is currently shooting in Canada.
An uncensored trailer for Periscope Entertainment’s Would You Rather has gone online. Directed by Periscope CEO David Guy Levy, the film stars Brittany Snow (Prom Night), Jeffrey Combs (Re-Animator) and Sasha Grey (Anal Cavity Search 6).
The slasher finds Snow playing a woman who competes in a wealthy psychopath’s deadly game of Would You Rather to win money to pay for her cancer-stricken brother’s medical bills. Lawrence Gilliard Jr. (”The Wire”), John Heard (”Prison Break”) and Eddie Steeples (“My Name Is Earl”) costar.
Katie Cassidy is set to topline director John Suits’ upcoming mind-fuck Scribbler. The 25-year-old stunner will play a woman undergoing an experimental treatment to eliminate the multiple personalities that torment her, but who is fearful of losing her true identity in the process.
Scribbler is written by Daniel Schaffer, adapted from his 2006 graphic novel. Michael Imperioli (“The Sopranos”), Billy Campbell (“The Killing”), Garret Dillahunt (Last House on the Left) and Kunal Nayyar (“The Big Bang Theory”) round out the cast.
Cassidy, daughter of ’70s teen idol David Cassidy, has starred in a string of notable genre projects including Platinum Dunes’ A Nightmare On Elm Street, Dimension’s Black Christmas, Screen Gems’ When a Stranger Calls and the short-lived CBS mystery series “Harper’s Island.”
She was also tapped as the female lead on The CW pilot “Arrow,” an adaptation of DC Comics’ “Green Arrow,” starring Stephen Amell as the vigilante superhero.
Former model and “Modern Family” star Sofía Vergara is the latest marquee name to sign up for Robert Rodriguez’s Machete Kills, a sequel to the director’s 2010 grind-house actioner Machete. The 40-year-old Colombian bombshell joins newcomers Amber Heard, Demian Bichir and Mel Gibson.
Machete Kills finds Machete recruited by the U.S. government to bring down a billionaire arms dealer (Gibson) plotting global warfare with a high-tech space weapon. Vergara will play Madam Desdemona, a leather-clad femme fatale holding info Machete desperately needs.
Returning to the fold are Michelle Rodriguez as rebel leader Shé, Jessica Alba as ICE agent Sartana Rivera and Danny Trejo as former Mexican Federale Machete Cortez. Cameras are set to roll this month in Austin, Texas.
Vergara, best known in the States for her portrayal of sassy trophy wife Gloria Delgado Pritchett on ABC’s “Modern Family,” doesn’t have any genre creds to her name, but she did star in Latin America’s re-imagining of the ABC’s mystery-soap “Desperate Housewives.”
CLICK HERE TO SEE SOFIA IN ACTION ON THE SET OF MACHETE KILLS
Up-and-comer Anna Hutchison is set to join season three of the Starz’ series “Spartacus.” According to TVLine, the sexy 26-year-old Kiwi will play Laeta, the “privileged wife of a Roman dignitary who becomes entangled in the struggle against Spartacus.”
Hutchison, who played Lily CVhilman, the Yellow Cheetah Ranger, on ABC Kids’ “Power Rangers: Jungle Fury,” made her American feature film debut this year in Joss Whedon’s self-important fuck-you to horror Cabin in the Woods.
As Jules Louden, the film’s whore archetype, she tongue kissed a mounted wolf head and dropped her top during an outdoor sex scene with Chris Hemsworth, sealing her fate as the first to be filleted.
Twentieth Century Fox has released a red-band trailer for Akiva Schaffer’s upcoming alien invasion comedy The Watch (previously Neighborhood Watch). The film stars funny men Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, Jonah Hill and some guy named Richard Ayoade.
The guys form a neighborhood watch group to escape the monotony of their daily lives, but soon discover that extraterrestrial beings are living among them and plotting a take-over. The film, opening July 27, costars Billy Crudup, Will Forte, Rosemarie DeWitt, and Nicholas Braun.
Machete Kills finds Machete recruited by the U.S. government to bring down a billionaire arms dealer (Gibson) plotting to create global warfare by creating and utilizing a high-tech space weapon. Heard will play assassin Miss San Antonio.
Model-turned-actress Riley Keough is set to star in director Jim Mickle’s (Stake Land) We Are What We Are, a remake of the Mexican cannibalism frightener Somos Lo Que Hay. Set in New York’s Catskills, production begins on May 29.
We Are What We Are is the story of two sisters (Keough, Julia Garner) forced by their father (Bill Sage) to partake in an ancient cannibalism ritual following the unexpected death of their mother. Wyatt Russell costars as a young deputy in love with Keough’s character.
Keough, who made her feature film debut in the rock biopic The Runaways, will next be seen in the lesbian werewolf drama Jack & Diane. The 22-year-old is also slated to appear in George Miller’s long-delayed Mad Max: Fury Road, the fourth installment in the beloved franchise.
Warner Bros. has released a third trailer for The Dark Knight Rises, the final chapter in Christopher Nolan’s Batman saga. The new footage continues to show how scary a guy with a jockstrap on his face can be and provides a look at Anne Hathaway in her Catwoman costume.
The Dark Knight stars Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Juno Temple, Josh Pence, Nestor Carbonell and, of course, Tom Hardy as Bane and Christian Bale as the Batman.
The Dark Knight arrives in theaters on July 20, 2012.
