The Daily Dish: April 21

-- Christian Bale is a Fighter Notoriously intense thesp Christian Bale will enter the ring with Mark Wahlberg and outspoken director David O. Russell for the boxing tale Fighter. The real-life story follows Boston legend "Irish" Mickey Ward (Wahlberg) who rose to world lightweight championship glory when his half-brother Dicky Ecklund (Bale) re-entered his life and became his trainer. Ecklund spent a decade in state prison for various drug and theft related charges and re-entered society a new man, ready to help Ward achieve the glory that had eluded him. This film has been in the works for some time, with various incarnations including Matt Damon and Brad Pitt in the lead roles and Darren Aronofsky behind the camera, but is now back on track with a confirmed second male lead and director. Of course, the juiciest part of this news is that Fighter will join Bale and Russell – Hollywood players responsible for two of the most public on-set meltdowns. Who else is secretly hoping for an epic on-camera battle of the blowhards?

-- Jena Malone, Jamie Chung join Sucker Punch! Fresh from helming one of the year's most anticipated films, Watchmen's nimble director Zack Snyder will again tackle the fantasy genre with Sucker Punch! and has added Jena Malone and Jamie Chung to his roster of kick-ass ladies. The all-female flick is set in 1950s America where an evil stepfather has thrown his daughter (The Uninvited's Emily Browning) into a mental institution where she is set to undergo a lobotomy in a week's time. As a coping mechanism, she retreats into an imagined world where she needs to gather five objects in order to escape. Malone and Chung join previously-announced castmates Browning, Vanessa Hudgens and Abbie Cornish (Stop-Loss) and replace Emma Stone and Evan Rachel Wood, who were linked to the project but eventually declined due to scheduling conflicts. Sucker Punch! has more than a whiff of Quentin Tarantino to it, and that's mostly a good thing to this girl. Who says there can't be more than one director making films about wild femme fatales?

-- New Moon will still rise November 20 Bullet dodged - for now. According to a representative from Summit Entertainment, New Moon is still scheduled for a November 20 release. When news broke that Twilight author Stephenie Meyer was facing plagiarism allegations, reports claimed that the film's production, taking place in Vancouver, was going to be severely and negatively affected. Apparently, all that panic was for naught and fans will be able to sink their teeth into another Bella and Edward escapade soon enough. The Summit rep allayed fears by telling MSNBC "[t]here is no delay. Whatever you’re hearing about a lawsuit interfering with the film (and) its release, all I can say is it’s totally false.”

-- Will anyone cut loose in Footloose remake? After newly-minted box office draw Zac Efron dropped out of the Footloose remake, Gossip Boy Chace Crawford was eager to put on his dancing shoes and shake up small town America with his dangerous hip-shaking and choreographed tomfoolery. But it now appears Crawford's role in the classic Kevin Bacon flick is in jeopardy because of his day job on GG. E! Online is quoting a source as saying that there is "a big overlap of when he'd have to shoot Footloose and the next season of Gossip Girl.” The show's producers haven't yet found a way to reshuffle things to allow Crawford the time in between, with the source going on to say that hiring a "big-league lawyer to come in and figure out how to make it work" could be on the table. Poor Nate Archibald just wants to dance, dammit!