20th Century Fox and director David Fincher are firming up Gone Girl, the Gillian Flynn novel that will star Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike and shoots this fall. Fincher has set Tyler Perry to play Tanner Bolt, the attorney who reps Affleck’s character after his wife disappears, and Neil Patrick Harris is near a deal to play Desi Collins, the wife’s former boyfriend. At the same time, Fincher has set Kim Dickens, Patrick Fugit and Carrie Coon to round out the cast.
Perry’s deal is now closed. Fincher saw him playing the title role in Alex Cross and courted him for the lawyer role. WME and Ziffren repped Perry, who is busy generating his shows for the OWN network and will next be seen onscreen in A Made Christmas, another in his line of Madea films. Harris is starting to ramp up his post-How I Met Your Mother career and also is hosting the Primetime Emmys later this month. He is repped by CAA.