Casting Call: Nicole Kidman in Talks for THE PAPERBOY as Tobey Maguire Drops Out, John Goodman Joins Ben Affleck’s ARGO

We’ve got a couple more casting stories for you today. First up, Nicole Kidman is now in talks to join the cast of Lee Daniels’ (Precious) adaptation of Pete Dexter’s novel The Paperboy. THR reports that Kidman would replace Sofia Vergara, who was forced to drop out after Tobey Maguire’s exit from the project shifted the schedule, imposing on her Modern Family shoot. Matthew McConaughey and Zac Efron are apparently still attached to star in the film, which centers on the slacker son of a newspaper editor in Florida, who gets wrapped up in investigating a murder case. Filming is set to begin later this summer.

Hit the jump for the news of John Goodman joining Ben Affleck’s directorial vehicle Argo, as well as a synopsis for the novel The Paperboy.

Additionally, Affleck has added John Goodman to the cast of his political thriller Argo. So far, Goodman joins Alan Arkin as the only announced cast members. The true story tells how the CIA and the Canadian government teamed up to rescue six U.S. diplomats who had been taken hostage by Iranians in 1979. The CIA’s ruse involved convincing the Iranian government that the diplomats were actually a Hollywood film crew scouting locations.

Variety reports that Goodman Oscar-winning Planet of the Apes makeup artist John Chambers who was called in to help sell the ploy. Arkin is on board to play a Hollywood producer and O.S.S. veteran.

Here’s the synopsis for Pete Dexter’s The Paperboy:

Moat County, Fla., is located where the St. John’s River flows north-a geographical rarity and, in literature, a signal that we’ve entered the strange and violent world of National Book Award-winner Dexter (Paris Trout). Narrator Jack James is the son of the Moat County Tribune’s editor and publisher. While Jack’s older brother, Ward, reports for the Miami Times, Jack has settled for a job delivering papers for the Tribune. But when Ward and his partner, evil dandy Yardley Acheman, come to Moat County to investigate the four-year-old murder of the local sheriff, Jack assists them in the inquiry. After a vicious beating by two sailors lands Ward in the intensive care unit, Yardley finishes the story without Ward and Jack, fabricating evidence to do so. Accompanying his traumatized brother Ward back to Miami, Jack takes a job as a copyboy at the Times. It isn’t long, however, before Yardley’s wrongdoing comes to light, generating more trouble for the Jameses [Amazon].