According to Variety, Universal is moving ahead on its Tom Cruise pic, the sci-fi epic formerly titled “Oblivion” that’s now going by the working title “Horizons.” This weekend, a diverse who’s-who of Hollywood actresses will test for female leads in “Tron: Legacy” helmer Joseph Kosinski’s next project. Jessica Chastain, Olivia Wilde, Brit Marling, Noomi Rapace and Olga Kurylenko are among the thesps testing Saturday — though others are still under consideration. Universal had no comment on the shortlist. Cruise is set to star as Jack, a man who lives in the clouds above Earth and heads to its surface to repair drones that essentially keep the planet safe from an alien race that has all but wiped out humanity. There are two key female characters – Victoria, Jack’s right-hand woman and lover who serves as his eyes and ears while he’s on repair missions, and Julia, his fiancee on Earth before the alien invasion.

In October 2010, the Los Angeles Times reported on Noomi’s involvement on a biopic on Swedish boxer Boss Hogberg and his wife Anita Lindblom (see original post here). While there hasn’t been a word on this production ever since, it’s now brought back to the spotlight, according to Screendaily with the participation of Catherine Hardwicke as a director: Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke will direct Swedish award-winning Millennium star Noomi Rapace as legendary Swedish singer Anita Lindblom and her husband actor Ola Rapace as boxer Bosse Högberg, in a yet untitled biopic depicting the couple’s whirlwind romance in the 1960s. Lindblom, whose chart-topper 1961 Sån’t är livet – a Swedish cover version of Roy Hamilton’s You Can Have Her – has been named Swedish Hit of the 20th Century. She was top of the pops when she met Högberg, a Swedish and European boxer champion, and their turbulent affair and subsequent marriage fed the scandal pages of the local tabloids for years. He died in 2005, while she is now in her 70s, living in France. The full article can be read here.

Article courtesy IndieWire’s The Playlist: Despite director David Slade recently taking to Twitter to express his optimism about the prospects for the previously announced vampire-road-film “The Last Voyage Of Demeter,” it seems one of his potential stars isn’t quite on the same level. ‘Dragon Tattoo’ star Noomi Rapace has revealed that her burgeoning slate and increasing popularity in Hollywood may be a hurdle too great to overcome for the potential collaboration with Slade. “I do hope [I can do it] but I don’t know,” the actress told Empire. “I’m occupied until late July or August… For the moment I don’t want to decide what to do next. I think I’d like to do something quite small.” And small doesn’t exactly seem like what the adaptation has to offer for this intriguing “Alien”-inspired horror tale of the ill-fated journey of Dracula’s coffin from Transylvania to England. The complete article can be read here.

Here’s news on the planned “Alien” prequel, for which Noomi has been in talks to star after meeting with director Ridley Scott, according to Movieweb. If you are anxiously awaiting Ridley Scott’s Untitled Alien Prequel and its subsequent sequel, you’re going to have to wait a little longer. According to Scriptflags, the upcoming sci-fi horror saga won’t return to theaters until 2013 and 2014 respectively. The first of these prequels had previously been set to debut in 2012.

Neither 20th Century Fox nor Ridley Scott gave a reason for the delay. This news comes two months after their widely publicized disagreement over budget and story, which saw Scott wanting a big budget, heavy R rating, while the studio wants a low grade PG-13 outing. In early November, Ridley was quoted as saying, “It’s written and budgeted and, frankly, we’ve already booked film stages in England, so I think [it will happen soon].” And FX supervisor Henry South confirmed that production design had already begun on the project. Principle photography was reportedly set to start in February of 2011, with Noomi Rapace and Olivia Wilde taking the lead roles in the movie. Damon Lindelof’s rewrite of Jon Spaihts’s screenplay for the prequel was said to be favored by all parties involved, but speculation has it that the movie is being delayed so that this team can further develop the story.

The Los Angeles Times has the exclusive scoop that Noomi Rapace is taking a lead part in a new boxing movie – opposite her ex-husband. Rapace, who is on the verge of English-language stardom with a role in “Sherlock Holmes 2,” is set to star in a biopic about the colorful Swedish boxer Boss Hogberg, in which she’ll play real-life cabaret singer Anita Lindblom, who was married to the prizefighter. Rapace will star in the English-language movie with Ola Rapace, to whom she was married for seven years. Hogberg’s life and career was the stuff of “Raging Bull”-esque legend: The product of a working-class Gothenburg neighborhood, Hogberg captured the light-middleweight title (and lost it three weeks later), boxed through pain (he once fought 14 rounds with a broken jaw), romanced starlets, dealt with alcoholism and ran into legal troubles like Jack Thompson used to run into right hooks. His life changed – somewhat – when he met and married Lindblom. Even with Noomi Rapace’s schedule filling up, producers say they’re not concerned about timing, with the idea to shoot the as-yet-untitled film as early as this summer in Sweden and France.

Article courtesy Cinematical: On Monday, Noomi Rapace spoke to reporters in Los Angeles in conjunction with the release of ‘The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest,’ which is being released on Friday, October 29. During Cinematical’s conversation with the actress, she discussed the prospect of stepping into the forthcoming ‘Alien’ prequel, and in particular, following in the footsteps of Sigourney Weaver, whose character Ellen Ripley became the prototype for empowered female characters on celluloid. “She’s the one!” Rapace said to Cinematical. “I loved ‘Aliens,’ and I saw it when I was a teenager. It was something completely new, and for me, I remember when I saw it, I was like, wow, what is this?” Many fans of the Swedish film series that she currently stars in have suggested that Rapace’s role as Lisbeth Salander makes her a prime candidate to play a tough female character in the upcoming ‘Alien’ prequels. Rapace, meanwhile, confessed she was a huge fan of Weaver’s work. “I was a big fan, and I think she’s a great actress. She’s done so many things after that also that is just she’s stunning.” Rapace didn’t officially confirm that she was going to be in the ‘Alien’ prequel, but she said she would love to work with director Ridley Scott, who is returning to the film series after more than 30 years. “I would love to work with Ridley, but there’s so many rumors,” she observed. “I’ve read a lot of things about me in the paper and gone, oh really? Okay! Yeah – I didn’t know that! But I’ve met him a couple of times, and it’s amazing for me, but he’s said he’s a big fan of my work, and I’m a really big fan of his work so I would love to work with him. But we’ll see.”

20th Century Fox is pushing forward with Ridley Scott’s prequel to Alien, a sci-fi story that takes place 35 years before the original timeline featuring Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley. The studio reportedly “flipped” last week over the new draft by Damon Lindelof, one of the creators of ABC’s “Lost,” after he rewrote the script turned in by Jon Spaights. Details have been scarce, usually cobbled together from the crumbs Scott offers to his hungry followers, but a script has definitely been handed in and is now being shown to potential cast members. Which is why we’re suddenly seeing a multitude of casting rumors circling. Natalie Portman is supposedly the studio’s top choice, but she’s on the top of just about everyone’s list at this point. Noomi Rapace, star of the Swedish The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, also met with Scott to discuss the lead, as did Gemma Arterton. Even Carey Mulligan’s name has surfaced, which would be a major departure from her previous work. More recently, Bloody-Disgusting reported Anne Hathaway and James Franco were being considered for roles, which makes some logical sense considering their recent connections to the studio. Franco is starring in another Fox reboot, Rise of the Apes, in the works. Hathaway recently worked with other branches of the studio on Fox 2000’s Love and Other Drugs and the animated film Rio.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Noomi Rapace is set to come aboard the “The Last Voyage of Demeter,” about the ill-fated journey of Dracula’s coffin from Transylvania to England, according to sources familiar with the project. Rapace is expected to play a stowaway on the boat, which according to legend arrived at its port with no survivors, prompting speculation that the vampire corpse made a little mayhem. Ben Kingsley is also coming aboard the ship, the sources said, while a lead actor is in the process of being cast. The film has heat behind it: it’s being directed by Oscar-winner Stefan Ruzowitzky (“The Counterfeiters”) and produced by the team behind “Shutter Island” at Phoenix Pictures; the movie is expected to contain some of the literary genre qualities that characterized “Shutter.”

As previously reported, Ridley Scott is currently scouting actresses for the part a younger version of Sigourney Weaver’s indelibly kick-ass heroine, Ripley for Alien. The sci-fi prequel (not a sequel), that it will also be in 3-D. Entertainment Weekly has confirmation from Scott’s camp that the director has been busy lately meeting with several young leading ladies for the juicy part, including Carey Mulligan, Aussie actress Abbie Cornish (who appeared in Scott’s 2006 A Good Year), and fresh-faced import Noomi Rapace, star of the Swedish Girl With the Dragon Tattoo movies. In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly’s Rob Brunner, Rapace hinted at this development, albeit a bit cagily. The latest actress to join the group, as it’s reported today by New York Magazine’s Vulture, is Natalie Portman. Here’s what they further write: A parade of actresses have met with Scott to discuss the lead role, but only two have engendered substantial enthusiasm from both Fox brass and Scott Free, the director’s Fox-based production company: Vulture can report exclusively that at the top of the list is Natalie Portman. Right behind Portman is the already-reported Noomi Rapace, star of the Swedish The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Article courtesy The New York Times. Remember that mysterious, unpublished, unconfirmed manuscript of the fourth book in Stieg Larsson’s best-selling “Millennium” series? It’s actually the fifth book. So said Mr. Larsson’s brother, Joakim, in an interview on CBS that was broadcast on Sunday. “I got an e-mail from Stieg 10 days before he died, where he said that book four is nearly finished,” Joakim Larsson said in the interview, which also included his father, Erland. “To make it more complicated, this book No. 4 – that’s book No. 5,” he added. “Because he thought that was more fun to write.” The disclosure – should it be true – adds another turn to an already twisty personal story that is nearly as complicated as the plots of the Swedish crime mysteries that Mr. Larsson wrote.

The first three books of the “Millennium” series, beginning with “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” and ending with “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest,” have become a publishing phenomenon, with tens of millions of copies in print. Mr. Larsson did not live to see the books published; he died of a heart attack in 2004, at the age of 50. The author had said he intended the series to consist of 10 books, and he was working on a manuscript when he died. Under Swedish law, control of his estate went to his family, not to Eva Gabrielsson, his longtime companion. Ms. Gabrielsson, who is reportedly in possession of a laptop containing the manuscript, declined to comment to CBS. Paul Bogaards, a spokesman for Knopf, the American publisher of the “Millennium” books, said he believed the unpublished manuscript existed but did not know whether it was intended to be the fourth book or the fifth. Whether it will ever be published is another question. Depending on the plot and substance of the story, it is possible that it could work as the fourth book in the series, even if it had been intended to be the fifth. According to CBS, the Larssons said they would not allow the book to be published.