Rachel Weisz joins Peter Jackson’s Lovely Bones; Matthew Vaughn to direct Thor movie, William Hurt hunts The Hulk; Stargate Atlantis gets Firefly actress and possible spin-off, Supergirl flies to Smallville, Jericho returns to CBS, and much more!

Casting

• Rachel Weisz will star in The Lovely Bones, the Peter Jackson-directed adaptation of the Alice Sebold novel. [Link]
• William Hurt has joined the cast of Louis Leterrier-directed The Incredible Hulk. Hurt will play Gen. Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, the father of Bruce Banner’s (Edward Norton) love interest Betty Ross (Liv Tyler), who’s dedicated his life to capturing the Hulk. [Link]

• Former Firefly/Serenity actress Jewel Staite will join the cast of the SCI FI Channel’s original series Stargate Atlantis for its fourth season. [Link]
• Andy Samberg, Jeff Daniels, Kenan Thompson, Stanley Tucci, and Patrick Warburton will voice characters in the CG-animated comedy Space Chimps, a Vanguard Animation and Starz Media production for 20th Century Fox. [Link]
• Real-life wife and husband Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany will star in Born, a thriller to be produced by Guillermo del Toro, Lawrence Gordon, and Lloyd Levin and executive-produced by horror veteran Clive Barker, who also co-wrote the script. [Link]

• Jennifer Aniston will produce and possibly star in DreamWorks’ period musical Goree Girls. Link]
• Greg Kinnear and Maura Tierney have joined Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Sigourney Weaver, and Dax Shepard in the cast of Universal Pictures’ Baby Mama, written and directed by Michael McCuller. [Link]

… and more bits

• The LA Times reports that Matthew Vaughn (Stardust, Layer Cake) will direct the Thor movie, which Marvel announced last year would have a script by Mark Protosevich (Poseidon, The Cell).

• Supergirl — the Kryptonian cousin to Superman — will make her way into the seventh season of Smallville. No actress has been cast in the role at this time. [Link]
• The cancelled drama Jericho will return to CBS with new episodes beginning Friday, July 6 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT), after outraged fans bombarded the network with packages of nuts. Link]
• Robert C. Cooper, executive producer of SCI FI Channel’s Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, confirmed that he’s developing a third series with the working title Stargate Universe, though the project has not yet been picked up by any network. [Link]
• Warner Bros. to adapt the ’80s cartoon Thundercats into a CGI-animated feature.

And …

… a Happy Birthday to our friend, Jennzarro!