Casting Roundup: Ellen Page - Freehand, Alfred Molina - Abduction, John Hurt - Melancholia

Here's a few little tid bits of casting information that you might be interested in hearing about.

Lars Von Trier (Anitchrist) has wrapped up casting for his new disaster movie Melancholia. The last cast member added to the film was John Hurt who will join the already cast Kirsten Dunst, Kiefer Sutherland, Charlotte Rampling, Stellan Skarsgard, Alexander Skarsgard, Udo Kier and Charlotte Gainsbourg. The film is described as "a beautiful film about the end of the world that affects the planets inhabitants."

Alfred Molina (Spider-Man 2) has been cast as a key player in Lionsgate's new thriller Abduction, in which Taylor Lautner plays a young man who realizes he was kidnapped as a child, and is forced to run for his life after he reaches out to find his real parents. Molina will play a CIA agent who is always one step behind. He's determined to bring the teenager in alive. I guess he's like Tom Hanks character in Catch Me if You Can. Molina will make a great addition to the cast of this movie.

Ellen Page (Juno) will star in a film based on Cynthia Wade's award-winning short documentary Freeheld.  Ron Nyswaner (Philadelphia) is currently writing the screenplay "based on the true story of New Jersey car mechanic Stacie Andree, who'll be played by Page, and her police detective girlfriend Laurel Hester, who both battled to secure Hester's pension benefits after she was diagnosed with a terminal illness." The documentary the film is based on won the Oscar for best short documentary in 2008.