Casting Net: Benedict Cumberbatch to play explorer Percy Fawcett?

• Benedict Cumberbatch (Star Trek Into Darkness) is in talks to take the lead role in the adaptation of David Grann‘s best-seller The Lost City of Z about Percy Fawcett, a British explorer who disappeared in the Amazon during a 1925 expedition. If the adaptation sounds distantly familiar, it’s likely because Brad Pitt was attached to star in the project more than two years ago, and it’s been in and out of development limbo since. Pitt’s Plan B is producing with James Gray (We Own the Night) still set to direct. [Deadline]

• Former Mad Men-er Jared Harris is on a roll with the remakes lately. In addition to yesterday’s news that he’d signed on to re-team with Guy Ritchie for Man From U.N.C.L.E., he’s also joined the cast of the Poltergeist update to play the host of a cable show called Haunted House Cleaners. [Deadline]

• The Perks of Being a Wallflower‘s Nicholas Braun is also in negotiations to join Poltergeist, which stars Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt. [The Wrap]

• Ryan Reynolds will get a new onscreen wife in the form of Natalie Martinez (Under the Dome), who has joined the cast of Tarsem‘s (The Fall) sci-fi thriller Selfless about an aging billionaire who swaps bodies with a man in his prime. Unfortunately, his new body is being hunted by some killers. [Deadline]

• Rescue Me‘s Manny Perez has joined Ira Sachs‘ Love Is Strange to play the partner of Cheyenne Jackson‘s (Behind the Candelabra) character. [Deadline]