Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I know the original casting of Ryan Gosling in Peter Jackson's THE LOVELY BONES had some fans of the book scratching their heads. He was very young for the role, but I had heard rumblings that he might not have been cast as patriarch of the Salmon family, but as the lead cop investigating the murder of Susie. That made more sense.

But now it seems Ryan Gosling has stepped out just as they're about to start shooting. A little deja vu here. If you remember Jackson cast Stuart Townsend as Aragorn in LORD OF THE RINGS and realized at the last minute that the actor was too young and brought in Viggo Mortensen just as shooting started. Here they don't state that as the reason, but the trades say it was the neutral fallback "creative differences."

Stepping into the role of Jack Salmon is Mark Wahlberg. This is a very interesting choice in my book. He's not the everyman father figure I pictured in my mind when I read the book or the script, but he's proven himself a great actor. Very curious to see how this one shapes up. I'm expecting great things. The script was fantastic and it's a return to fantastical drama for Jackson and Fran Walsh.