Casting Net: Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale board animated 'Great Migration.' Plus: Rachel Griffiths, Melissa McCarthy, Adam Rodriguez

• Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Ashley Benson (Pretty Little Liars), and Big Time Rush members Kendall Schmidt and Logan Henderson have all signed on to lend their voices to the indie animated feature The Great Migration, about a predator whose altered state proves to be a threat to the local ecosystem. If the project wasn’t already chockablock with teen dreaminess, all of the actors will also contribute to the film’s original soundtrack. No director was announced, but screenwriter Kevin G. Schmidt (Cheaper By the Dozen) will also perform in the film.

• Rachel Griffiths and Kathy Baker have signed onto Saving Mr. Banks, Disney studios announced today, joining Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson in the film about the struggle between Walt Disney (Hanks) and author P.L. Travers (Thompson) to adapt her Mary Poppins series of books into a feature film. Griffiths will play Travers’ Aunt Ellie, the inspiration for Poppins, and Baker will play Tommie, who worked with Disney at his studio. Colin Farrell, Paul Giamatti, Jason Schwartzman, B.J. Novak, and Bradley Whitford costar. John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side) is directing from a script by Kelly Marcel (who created Fox’s Terra Nova).
• Always up for a party, Melissa McCarthy is in talks to join The Hangover Part III in a small role. Current in production, the film costars Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis, with a script by Craig Mazin (The Hangover Part II, and McCarthy’s upcoming comedy Identity Thief) and director Todd Phillips.
• Adam Rodriguez has joined the remake of the ’80s romantic dramedy About Last Night, which follows two singletons (Michael Ealy, Joy Bryant) who turn a one night stand into a possible relationship. Rodriguez will play the ex-flame of Bryant’s character. The film is as-yet untitled, since screenwriter Leslye Headland (Bachelorette) drew more from the original source material, David Mamet’s play Sexual Perversity in Chicago. Kevin Hart and Regina Hall play the couple’s respective friends, who don’t approve of the relationship. Steve Pink (Hot Tub Time Machine) is directing



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Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Big Time Rush Members to Star in Animated Film (Exclusive)

The teen-friendly cast will also lend their voices to an original soundtrack accompanying the indie project.

High School Musical alum Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Tisdale are getting back into the animation business.

The actresses join Big Time Rush members Kendall Schmidt, Logan Henderson and Pretty Little Liars' Ashley Benson in a teen-friendly cast for The Great Migration, an animated film from the newly-formed CMI Entertainment, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. Additionally, the group will lend their voices to an original soundtrack to accompany the film. "The idea for The Great Migration arrived in my email inbox via a weekly newsletter from an alternative physician I follow in Chicago," Schmidt says. "The film centers on a group of characters that encounter a mutated predator threatening to destroy the balance of their environment." Tisdale has long lent her voice to animation as a series regular on Disney Channel's Phineas and Ferb, while Hudgens previously voiced a character on Seth Green's adult cartoon series Robot Chicken. This will be the first animated project for Kendall Schmidt and Henderson. The project will mark CMI Entertainment's first attempt at producing a film using pre-visualization, which aims to create high quality animation below current market prices. "What we hope to accomplish with The Great Migration is the most efficient animated storytelling without sacrificing artistic vision or quality," says CMI's Michael Cammarata, who cites Timur Bekmambetov as his mentor and inspiration for the project. "If the right partners are economically and creatively on the same page, I believe projects can be brought from conception to reality quicker than ever before." The film is expected to begin production Nov. 1. Cammarata, Kevin G. Schmidt and Rob Minkoff are producing.

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