Casting Bits: Sacha Baron Cohen In 'Les Misérables', Selena Gomez In 'Spring Breakers', Holly Hunter In Diablo Cody's Directorial Debut

There's still no word on who'll be playing Éponine in Tom Hooper's Les Misérables, but the project has landed yet another well-known star to play her father. According to LondonNet, Sacha Baron Cohen is set to join Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, and Eddie Redmayne in the musical, in the role of the villainous inn owner Monsieur Thénardier. Helena Bonham Carter was said to be in talks to play Thénardier's wife earlier this year, but it's not clear whether she's actually attached at this point.

Cohen did a bit of singing in his last big-screen musical, Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and is slated to do still more as the lead of that Freddie Mercury biopic from producer Graham King. In terms of non-singing roles, Cohen recently appeared in Martin Scorsese's Hugo, and already has three more movies scheduled to open next year — The Dictator, Madagascar 3, and Django Unchained. Get used to that face, because you'll be seeing a lot of it in 2012.

Les Misérables opens December 7, 2012. [via The Playlist]

After the jump, a Disney gal decides it's time to break into more mature territory, and Diablo Cody's next project finds a mom for Julianne Hough.

The plot follow four college girls who rob a fast-food restaurant to get some quick cash for a Florida vacation. When they wind up in jail for their antics, they get tangled up with a drug and arms dealer who bails them out. "It's a different character than I have ever played before," Gomez told MTV. "What you're going to see is more raw, I think. It's going to be raw and more about acting."

If Spring Breakers is anything at all like Korine's previous work — which include the dark classic Kids and the divisive Trash Humpers — it'll mark a sharp change of pace indeed for Gomez. Actually, even if Spring Breakers winds up being Korine at his very lightest, it's bound to be way edgier than Gomez's Monte Carlo or Ramona and Beezus. [via Film School Rejects]

Holly Hunter has just become the latest addition to Diablo Cody's untitled directorial debut, which also stars Julianne Hough, Russell Brand, and Octavia Spencer. The script, also written by Cody, follows a young woman (Hough) who loses her faith after a pain crash and goes to Vegas to take a walk on the wild side. Once there, she meets an "unlikely companion" (Brand) who helps her find herself; Spencer plays a card dealer who works with Brand's character at the casino. Hunter will play Hough's mother, a "conservative and overprotective" type.

Hunter recently boarded Jane Campion's BBC Two miniseries Top of the Lake, along with Elisabeth Moss and Peter Mullan, and will star in Carlo Carlei's Romeo and Juliet opposite Hailee Steinfeld and Douglas Booth. [Deadline]