In today's Callbacks -- your daily roundup of casting news from Deal Central -- Jessica Chastain is the third red-haired actress to join DreamWorks' "The Help, Fernando Meirelles will direct a sexy drama from writer Peter Morgan, Danny McBride calls Fred Ward "daddy," David Bowers lands a "Wimpy Kid" gig and Toby Kebbell returns from war.
Previously on Deal Central: Peter Jackson looks to replace Guillermo del Toro on "The Hobbit," Wayne Kramer hunts down Pretty Boy Floyd and Alexander Skarsgard finds work on a Norwegian oil rig.
• Jessica Chastain has joined the cast of DreamWorks' "The Help," the actress' publicist has confirmed to TheWrap.
Tate Taylor directs from his own screenplay, which is adapted from Kathryn Stockett's best-selling novel.
The story concerns black maids working in white households in the early 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi.
Chastain will play Celia Foote, an insecure Southern lady who constantly tries to fit in with the high society women who reject her.
The rest of the cast includes Viola Davis, Emma Stone, Bryce Dallas Howard, Octavia Spencer and Chris Lowell ("Private Practice").
DreamWorks is co-producing "The Help" with Participant Media and Imagenation Abu Dhabi, while Disney's Touchstone Pictures will distribute the movie.
Chris Columbus, Brunson Green and Michael Barnathan are producing the movie, which begins production at the end of July in Greenwood, Miss.
Chastain will soon be seen playing Brad Pitt's wife in Terrence Malick's upcoming "Tree of Life," and she'll also appear in John Madden's "The Debt" as a young Helen Mirren. Chastain recently wrapped "The Fields," a thriller starring Sam Worthington and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
She's represented by Paradigm and Mosaic.
• Oscar-nominated filmmaker Fernando Meirelles ("City of God") will direct the sex-themed drama "360," Meirelles' representation at WME has confirmed to TheWrap.
Two-time Oscar nominee Peter Morgan ("Frost/Nixon," "The Queen") wrote the script, which examines sexual morals within and between social classes.
Morgan was inspired by Arthur Schnitzler's play "Reigen," which was originally published in 1900 to much controversy. The play was previously adapted into several movies including the 1950 French film "La Ronde," and "360" will be a contemporized version of Schnitzler's work.
BBC Films and ORF Fernsehfilm will co-finance the project, while Dor Film will produce.
Former Universal co-chairman and Focus Features honcho David Linde will serve as executive producer on the project, having developed a relationship with Meirelles during the making of "The Constant Gardener."
Meirelles last directed the mediocre drama "Blindness." Morgan recently wrote Clint Eastwood's upcoming supernatural thriller "Hereafter" and HBO's political drama "The Special Relationship."
Morgan is represented by UTA and UK-based Independent.
• Fred Ward has been aptly cast as Danny McBride's strict father in Ruben Fleischer's "30 Minutes or Less," Ward's representation at Fortitude has told TheWrap.
The character is a tough military man known as The Major.
