Casting News: Jude Law Teams With Werner Herzog, Kim Basinger Joins ‘Grudge Match’

Is there anything more exciting than a new film from cinema's favorite madman, Werner Herzog? Is there anything less exciting than a boxing comedy from the director of 'Get Smart'? Your personal answers may vary based on taste and pretension. Anyway, the former has cast Jude Law and the latter Kim Basinger.

Jude Law joins Naomi Watts and Robert Pattinson in 'Queen of the Desert', which tells the story of "...Gertrude Bell, an explorer, writer, archeologist and attaché for the British Empire, who is credited with helping to catalyze the formation of the Middle East at the dawn of the 20th century." Naturally, Watts will be playing Bell (although we wouldn't put it past Herzog to cast Law or Pattinson as a woman). We don't know too much about the film, but the idea of an explorer journeying to a strange and unfamiliar land is right up Herzog's alley. Knowing Herzog, Bell is surely going to have a brush or two with madness.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Peter Segal's 'Grudge Match' has added Kim Basinger, who will play the third point in a love triangle with Robert DeNiro and Sylvester Stallone. In the film, DeNiro and Stallone play retired boxers and former rivals who are "coaxed out of retirement to fight one final bout." So it's like 'Rocky Balboa' if both fighters were Rocky Balboa. Of course, the big draw here will be to see Rocky fight Jake La Motta, so expect Basinger's character to be window dressing.