Casting News: Wahlberg’s ‘Happening’ & Swank’s ‘Strangers’

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LOS ANGELES (March 30, 2007) — Something is “Happening” to Mark Wahlberg.

Wahlberg has signed on to star in M. Night Shyamalan’s new thriller “The Happening,” according to Daily Variety. He will play a man who takes his family on the run when a cataclysmic natural crisis threatens to end the world.

Shooting is slated to begin in August in Philadelphia with a release planned for Friday, June 13, 2008.

Wahlberg is also set to step into the ring with Matt Damon in Paramount’s “The Fighter,” a drama about boxer “Irish” Micky Ward’s (played by Wahlberg) unlikely road to the world light welterweight title. His Rocky-like rise was shepherded by half-brother Dicky (played by Damon), a boxer-turned-trainer who rebounded in life after nearly being KO’d by drugs and crime.

In other casting news, Hilary Swank is developing a remake of Patrice Leconte’s “Intimate Strangers,” and will possibly star and produce, according to Daily Variety.

“Strangers” is the story of a woman who believes she is going to visit her new shrink but really ends up baring her soul to an accountant.

Swank, who stars in the new thriller “The Reaping,” also shares the screen with “300” hunk Gerard Butler in the upcoming romantic comedy “P.S., I Love You.”

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