To say
Ghost Rider star
Eva Mendes will "round out" the cast of
Will Eisner's The Spirit is to employ understatement in grand style.
Mendes joins Gabriel Macht, Scarlett Johansson and Samuel L. Jackson in Frank Miller's solo directorial debut, a comic noir thriller about Central City cop Denny Colt (Macht) who returns from the grave (where he keeps his HQ) to fight crime as the fedora & domino mask-wearing Spirit.
The buxom Mendes will portray the Spirit's great love, the curvaceous beauty Sand Serif, whose father was accidentally killed by Colt's uncle.
Principal photography on the Lionsgate-Odd Lot Entertainment co-production, to be lensed by acclaimed cinematographer Bill Pope (
The Matrix and
Spider-Man films), begins in October at New Mexico's Albuquerque Studios toward a 2009 release.