Waltz joins Water for Elephants

Academy Award nominee Christoph Waltz makes another nice move today as he signs on to be part of Water for Elephants, reports Deadline Hollywood. The novel adaptation already has set on it’s cast Reese Witherspoon along with Robert Pattinson. This completely knocks out a previous report that was made about Sean Penn possibly taking on the role that Waltz has now filled up. The lead cast, at the least, is set in place for the upcoming Francis Lawrence directed feature.

The novel adaptation, based on the book of the same name written by Sara Gruen, centers on nonagenarian Jacob Jankowski (Pattinson), who recounts the wild and wonderful period he spent with the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, a traveling circus he joined during the Great Depression. When 23-year-old Jankowski learns that his parents have been killed in a car crash, leaving him penniless, he drops out of Cornell veterinary school and parlays his expertise with animals into a job with the circus, where he cares for a menagerie of exotic creatures. He also falls in love with Marlena (Witherspoon), one of the show’s star performers—a romance complicated by Marlena’s husband (Waltz), the unbalanced, sadistic circus boss who beats both his wife and the animals Jankowski cares for.

Producing the picture is Andrew Tennenbaum, Gil Netter and Erwin Stoff with initial filming set to start up sometime this June.