Casting Couch: Brad Pitt Is One Good-Looking Bastard, Scorsese Gambles With HBO

Angelina's other half joins Quentin Tarantino's long-gestating war epic; director may helm small-screen pilot

Who knew Brad Pitt would turn out to be such a Bastard? (Besides Jennifer Aniston, that is.)

After weeks of high-profile courting by director Quentin Tarantino—which included a trip to France prior to the second of the Jolie-Pitt's second comings—Pitt has officially signed on to star in the director's long-gestating war epic Inglorious Bastards.

The Weinstein Co. confirmed to E! News that Pitt will play the freewheeling Lt. Aldo Raine, the hillbilly head of an eight-soldier Jewish resistance team who seek vengeance on the Nazis in German-occupied France.

Vive le acting chops.

Already on board the flick is Hostel director Eli Roth, who will play one of the Nazi hunters, and The Office's B.J. Novak.

Per the trades, Brit thesp Simon Pegg, star of Hot Fuzz and the new Scotty in J.J. Abrams' forthcoming Star Trek, is in talks to join the drama as a British lieutenant. Nastassja Kinski is also in negotiations to play a German movie queen.

Production is expected to kick off in Germany this October, with the film aiming to debut at next year's Cannes Film Festival.

In other big casting news:

• It's not TV...it's the directing coup of a lifetime. Oscar winner Martin Scorsese is in talks to direct HBO's new drama pilot Boardwalk Empire, a series in which he's already serving as executive producer. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the series is based on Nelson Johnson's book chronicling the 1920s beginnings of Atlantic City. Should he take the gig, it will mark Scorsese's second time helming a small-screen production—his first and so far only is directing one episode of Steven Spielberg's '80s anthology Amazing Stories.
• Iron Man thesp Tim Guinee has signed up to star in the forthcoming season of 24. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the character actor will play a reporter on the otherwise detail-scarce new season.
• E!'s own Ryan Seacrest continues to uphold his title as busiest man in showbiz, getting named the permanent cohost, per the Hollywood Reporter, of ABC's Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve, which, in the go-to emcee's honor, has been renamed Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve With Ryan Seacrest. That's our boy!