Minnie Driver Cast As Female Lead In 'About A Boy' Adaptation For NBC

NBC has cast Minnie Driver as the female lead in their adaptation of "About A Boy," according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Driver will play Fiona, the role originated by Toni Collette in the 2002 film of the same name. "New Girl's" David Walton will play Will, an immature bachelor who befriends a boy who moves in next door with his slightly crazy mom (Driver).

Fiona is described as an "eccentric and quirky mother who is attempting to find herself following a recent divorce. She's in a stage of 'vegan throwback hippie-ness' and still sad about the split when she and her son move next door to Will to San Francisco in the hopes that they can improve their lives."

The pilot is being scripted by Jason Katims, the man behind the critically acclaimed adaptations of "Friday Night Lights" and "Parenthood" for the network. According to THR, Katims wrote the role with Driver in mind. "Iron Man" director Jon Favreau is attached to direct.

In other casting news ...

J.J. Abrams/Alfonso Cuar?n's "Believe" finds one of its leads. Jake McLaughlin will star in the NBC pilot that focuses on the unlikely relationship between a girl who possesses an extraordinary gift and the man (McLaughlin) who is released from prison to protect her from those who would try to capture her. [Deadline]

AMC taps two Australian actors for Revolutionary War pilot "Turn." Meegan Warner has been cast as Mary Woodhull, a mother who is vehemently against the idea of her son becoming a soldier. Daniel Henshall is playing Caleb Brewster, a lieutenant in the Second Continental Artillery who relishes hand-to-hand combat and is fearless in battle. The project, from "Nikita" EP Craig Silverstein, centers around a farmer called Abe Woodhull, who forms a spy ring with his friends in 1778 and ends up assisting in the war for independence. [TVLine]

The CW's latest leading lady is ... Madeline Carroll, who will star in "Blink," a drama about how a family is inexorably changed after the father is in a car accident and falls into a vegetative state, wherein he cannot move or communicate but can see and hear everything going on around him. Carroll's character, Ari, is described as "an old soul brimming with teen angst who is having hard time dealing with her father?s accident and spends most of her time at the hospital with him." [Deadline]

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