In news from Cannes (not that I’m there, I’m in a stuffy office that really needs an extra window), Deadline reports that the always-solid Kurt Russell has jumped aboard “Undying”, a supernatural thriller from “Book of Eli” scribe Gary Whitta.

In the flick, which is set up at Media 8 (They did the Paul Walker flick “Running Scared” and Kevin Costner-starrer “The Upside of Anger”), Russell will play a private investigator who finds himself recruited by a mysterious woman who draws him into a surreal underworld.

You wouldn’t know it (having spotted his mug in “3000 Miles to Graceland” and “Captain Ron”) but Russell’s a fairly picky fellow (he passed on the remake of “Red Dawn”; Jeffrey Dean Morgan accepted the part), usually only jumping aboard films he thinks have potential or are of a personal interest to him, so this might just turn out Okay.

A couple of other Cannes announcements (thanks to Deadline, /Film, The Hollywood Reporter) :

- Shirley MacLaine, Maria Bello, Christina Ricci, John Corbett and Bill Pullman are attached to star in the comedy “Wild Oats”. It’ll tell of a former History teacher whose social security cheque reads 900,000 dollars instead of the usual 900 dollars.

- Emma ‘Daughter of Eric’ Roberts and William Moseley (“Narnia”) will join Ben Kingsley in “A Great Education”. Written and directed by Chris Keyser, the project concerns a working class young man (Moseley) who enters Harvard College, where he joins the singing group the Krockodiloes, gets mixed up in the social whirl and falls for a society girl (Roberts.)

- Rebecca Hall, Dominic West and Imelda Staunton and set to star in Studio Canal’s “Awakening”.Hall plays a paranormal investigator in England after the First World War, whose job is to debunk spiritualism. Then she comes across a haunting in a boarding school. Nick Murphy will direct.

- Kevin Spacey and Zachary Quinto have committed to star in ”Margin Call”,a corporate thriller about eight people at a prominent investment bank in a tumultuous 24-hour period during the early stages of the financial crisis.

- /Film have a bunch of photos they’ve taken on some of the film’s been advertised at Cannes, including the Bruce Willis/Jamie Foxx pic “Kane & Lynch”, Jack Black starrer “Gulliver’s Travels” and “Wall Street : Money Never Sleeps”.