It was a little strange when we were informed that two movies based on Greek mythology were coming — one an adaptation of popular video game God of War; the other being Tarsem Singh‘s War of Gods — with such similar titles. Though the Brett Ratner-directed God of War has since been put to sleep for now, it looks as if they don’t want to take the risk on title confusions among movie-goers.

In a press release put out by Relativity Media, it was announced that War of Gods will now officially be called Immortals. The new title doesn’t sound quite as epic (more like a Highlander sequel), but is effective enough for what they need it to be. Another possible title was Dawn of War.

Also announced in said press release, is that two new actors have joined the cast. John Hurt, who should be familiar to all movie fans for roles in films like Alien, the Hellboy movies, and the Harry Potter franchise (among many, many others), has been cast to play Zeus. Joining him will be Isabel Lucas, who will be playing Athena. Lucas was in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Daybreakers, and will be seen in the remake of Red Dawn.

Clearly, the addition of Hurt is a strange casting considering the character and the actor — one of the last people you might think of when visualizing Zeus would be Hurt — but it also adds a whole new layer of intrigue to this entire project. I was excited before, but this really makes me curious as to where they’re going with it all, and it likely means we’re in for a great story and not a ton of flashy money-making additives.

The cast so far also includes Henry Cavill (The Tudors) as Theseus, Stephen Dorff (Blade) as Stavros, Luke Evans (Clash of the Titans), Kellan Lutz (The Twilight Saga) as Poseidon, Joseph Morgan (Alexander), Freida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire) as Phaedra, and Mickey Rourke (Sin City) as King Hyperion.

Immortals will be released on November 11, 2011.

[Source: /Film]