The Transformers actress is attached to play an angel opposite Rourke in Passion Plays, an indie drama that Mitch Glazer is writing and directing.

Here’s the skinny on the project: Rourke will play a down-on-his-heels trumpet player, and Fox will play an angel in 1950s Los Angeles, with Rourke finding redemption in Fox after he attempts to save her from a gangster. Those familiar with the project describe it as a dramatic but heartwarming tale.

Fox’s character is described, in part, as as a slender beauty with wings who is part of a carnival.

Glazer, if you’re not familiar, is the screenwriter behind the Al Pacino CIA tale The Recruit and the Bill Murray comedy Scrooged who will be making his directorial debut with Plays; like Rourke and Fox, he’s repped by ICM. Laura Bickford, producer of ambitious dramas like Traffic and Che, is producing.

Fox, who recently followed her agents from Gersh, has landed a spate of projects of late, signing on for the Warners Western Jonah Hex and the Fox Atomic underwater actioner Fathom.

But Plays would mark a further evolution in her career; the actress, who burst onto the scene as the female lead in Transformers two years ago and appears in the sequel this summer (she’ll also appear, of course, in Diablo Cody’s upcoming supernatural tale Jennifer’s Body), had not previously signed on for a drama.

Source: THR / RiskyBusinessBlog.com

Screen Gems says the actress will star as the lead in the border thriller The Crossing.

Byron Willinger and Philip de Blasi penned the pic, in which a couple returning from a Mexican vacation is carjacked and the husband kidnapped. The wife (Fox) must smuggle heroin across the border in order to spring him.

Directors are meeting on the project, and production could begin as soon as July. Jeff Okin will produce with Pink Slip Pictures’ Karen Firestone and Max Wong. Screen Gems president Clint Culpepper and senior vp production Nick Phillips are overseeing for the studio.

Culpepper noted that Fox is ideal for the role of a woman who must be both victim and hero. The part “requires a vulnerability to make you care about her but a kind of strength to make you believe she can pull off the things she needs to,” he said. “And Megan has both a vulnerability about her and an unbelievable strength.”

The ICM-repped Fox has been racking up the gigs lately: She’s attached to play an angel opposite Mickey Rourke in the Mitch Glazer indie drama Passion Plays, will star in the Western Jonah Hex for Warners and will topline and produce the comic book actioner Fathom for Fox Atomic.

She’s next up in summer tentpole Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and the Diablo Cody-penned supernatural high school tale Jennifer’s Body.

Source: THR / RiskyBusinessBlog.com

Fox is in final negotiations to star opposite Josh Brolin and John Malkovich in Jonah Hex, Warner Bros.’ action Western based on the DC Comics character. She also is attached to star and develop Fathom, Fox Atomic’s comic book-based underwater adventure.

In Hex, being directed by Jimmy Hayward, Fox will play Leila, a gun-wielding beauty and love interest of Hex (Brolin), a scarred bounty hunter tracking a voodoo practitioner (Malkovich) who wants to raise an army of undead to liberate the South.

The movie is prepping for a shoot in April, with Mad Chance’s Andrew Lazar and Weed Road’s Akiva Goldsman producing.

Fathom, a comic created by recently deceased artist Michael Turner, follows a young woman named Aspen who learns she is a member of a race of aquatic humanoids who possess the ability to control water.

The project was at one point set up at James Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment. When the option lapsed, producer Peter Safran scooped it up and began packaging it, eventually attracting Fox, a fan of the comic since its 1998 debut, when it became the top-selling comic of the year. Fox had been seeking Turner to investigate Fathom’s rights availability.

Fox is now helping develop and shape the adaptation, which is being written by Jordan Mechner, the creator of video game Prince of Persia. (The ICM-repped scribe also wrote on Disney’s Jerry Bruckheimer-produced adaptation.)

Safran is producing with Steve Bessen and Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles actor Brian Austin Green. Fox also will produce in some capacity.

Turner will be credited as exec producer. Frank Mastromauro also is exec producing. Zak Kadison and Eric Lieb at Atomic will oversee.

Source: HollywoodReporter.com