It’s being reported that Mary Elizabeth Winstead has been cast as the female lead in Gemini Man, an upcoming action thriller from Paramount Pictures and Skydance Media. The actress beat out Orphan Black star Tatiana Maslany for the role.

Winstead joins Will Smith, who will actually be playing two roles, on the cast. Smith will play an older assassin named Henry who’s looking to escape that life, and also a clone of Henry who’s 25 years younger, in top form as an assassin, and on a mission to kill his older self. Winstead will play an operative working for the same company as Smith’s character who’s ordered to keep an eye on Henry, but ultimately ends up joining forces with him.

Though not officially signed on just yet, Children of Men and Sin City star Clive Owen is in talks for a role in Gemini Man as well. If a deal is reached, Owen would play one of the film’s villains, the head of the cloning program which created Henry’s dangerous young replica.

The movie is set to be directed by Ang Lee, whose previous credits include Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hulk, Brokeback Mountain, and Life of Pi, with the latter two films winning him Best Director Academy Awards.

Winstead’s previous credits include Final Destination 3, Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse segment “Death Proof,” Live Free or Die Hard and sequel A Good Day to Die Hard, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, 2011’s The Thing prequel, and more recently 10 Cloverfield Lane and season three of the FX series Fargo.

Producing the movie is Jerry Bruckheimer along with David Ellison and Dana Goldberg of Skydance, with Don Murphy executive producing.

Production on Gemini Man is expected to kick off next month, and the movie is currently locked in for an October 4, 2019 release date.

[Source: Heat Vision]

Follow me on Twitter.