George Lopez and Billy Ray Cyrus in spy comedy
George Lopez and Billy Ray Cyrus have joined Jackie Chan in The Spy Next Door a comedy shooting in Albuquerque, N.M. Chan’s character is asked to baby-sit his neighbour’s children and winds up having to protect them from secret agents after one of the kids accidentally downloads a code. Lopez is a CIA agent who might not be all that he appears; Cyrus is another agent. Amber Valletta is the kids’ mom, while Katherine Boecher plays a Russian underworld operative. Brian Levant is directing for indie financier Relativity.
Lopez most recently had done a voiceover in Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Cyrus next stars alongside his daughter, Miley, in Hannah Montana: The Movie. Valletta has appeared in Hitch, and Transporter 2, while Boecher appeared in episodes of AMC’s Mad Men and TNT’s The Closer.

French horror director Pascal focusses on Details
French filmmaker Pascal Laugier, who freaked out audiences at the Cannes and Toronto festivals this year, is assembling a Hollywood career with scary efficiency. Laugier will write and direct Details, a supernatural thriller about a daughter who disappears after stirring up dark forces and the father obsessed with finding her. The Paramount Vantage project is based on a short story by British fantasy writer China Mieville. He gained infamy with Martyrs, which polarised festival audiences with its violence and psychological torture. The film quickly helped to score him the job of writing and directing a remake of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser for Dimension Films.