Young Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence burst onto the scene with her tremendous performance in Sundance darling “Winter’s Bone” back in 2010. Her stellar work in that dark Appalachian drama garnered her that aforementioned Oscar nom, along with catapulting her straight into one-to-watch territory, territory that included a role in this summer’s X-MEN: FIRST CLASS and her very own franchise based on a bestselling YA novel series. “Winter’s Bone,” for all its buzz, has a background that’s not often mentioned – namely that it was adapted from Daniel Woodrell’s 2006 novel of the same. And it looks as if Lawrence may star in yet another book-to-film adaptation with some tough subject matter (that, however, takes things a bit lighter).

Deadline has the exclusive news that Lawrence is the frontrunner to grab the leading lady role in the adaptation of Matthew Quick’s 2008 novel “The Silver Linings Playbook.” Other actresses that were apparently in the running include all the standard young-star-on-the-ri​se names, including Rachel McAdams, Anne Hathaway, and Blake Lively. The film has an excellent pedigree – it will reteam cinematic best buds David O. Russell to direct and Mark Wahlberg to star.

The novel follows Pat Peoples, a misguided former high school history teacher who has just gotten out of a mental institution and must now return home to be looked after by his own mother. Pat attempts to reconstruct his life, which ends up including a nebulous friendship with another emotionally damaged person – Tiffany, the widowed sister-in-law of his own best friend. Wahlberg will play Pat, with Lawrence gunning for the interesting and offbeat role of Tiffany.

Of course, Lawrence also recently landed the coveted leading role in “The Hunger Games,” the first film adaption of Suzanne Collins’ young adult series about a post-apocalyptic America where teens are plucked from their homes and sent in to an annual battle to the death. Though there are three books in the “Hunger Games” series, Lionsgate has signed the cast for a four-film option (a move I reported on last month over at Gordon and the Whale). Despite this, the studio is still hedging its bets a bit, as the continuation of the franchise seems to hinge on how the first film does. I’ll go ahead and call it now – they will finish out the series. In the wake of the imminent end of the “Twilight” franchise, the YA set is desperate to throw their cinematic dollars at something else and “The Hunger Games” is not only a widely selling book series, it’s also (shock!) incredibly well-written.

But as big as “Hunger Games” could be (and should be), it looks as if Lawrence would have time enough in her schedule once the first “Hunger Games” film wraps to squeeze in the potential “Silver Linings” role. The film is expected to start production this fall.

Have you read "The Silver Linings Playbook"? Is Lawrence a good fit for Tiffany? If not, who else did you imagine in the role?

These young ladies came in and they were in a casting room and I was there with the casting directer and make-up artist. These lovely women had to show us their derrieres and the chosen one resembled my body the most without looking like it's fake.

I showed side-boob, and I figured I can't just give away everything all at once. I have to let out little pieces here and there.

Director Roman Polanski has completed his first new film since he was detained by Swiss authorities because of a decades-old sex abuse charge involving Polanski and a 13-year-old girl.  At the time Polanski accepted a plea bargain but he fled the United States in 1978 just before his sentencing and he’s managed to resist extradition to the United States ever since. Although Polanski has been living and working in Europe for the past three decades, the recent incident re-ignited the controversy and sent much of Hollywood into two separate camps regarding how Polanski should be dealt with this many years after the fact.

Will Polanski’s scandal affect the reception of this film? “Carnage,” based on the Tony Award-winning play “God of Carnage” by Yasmina Reza, features a dream cast of Oscar favorites including John C. Reilly, Jodie Foster, Christoph Waltz, and Kate Winslet. It tells the story of two sets of parents who meet up after their young sons are involved in a schoolyard fight.

The sheer star power of the cast may outweigh any reservations among those who are unsympathetic to Polanski’s defenders. I am particularly excited about seeing Winslet in this meaty role, her first film outing since her double tour-de-force three years ago in “Revolutionary Road” and “The Reader.” She’s currently a favorite to win a Best Actress Emmy for her hard-edged portrayal of “Mildred Pierce” in the HBO mini-series and I can’t wait to see her back on the big screen. But then again, I’m such a fan of Winslet’s that I’d be first in line if she were doing a one-woman show based on the debt ceiling hearings.

“Carnage” will screen later this summer at the Venice Film Festival and will open in the United States on November 18. It remains to be seen how much the press will focus on Polanski’s legal problems in its coverage of this highly anticipated film.

Film marketing appears to be ramping up earlier and earlier with each passing project, flooding filmgoers with a bevy of material before they even get a peek at what used to be the most straightforward of movie-selling hype - the trailer. These days, we get commercials and television spots, whole clips, teaser trailers, posters, production stills, on-set photos, and even something as flummoxing as teaser posters (a poster that teases another poster? O-kay). But despite so much pre-release noise, some of that marketing can be truly inventive and can really help pitch a film to an audience that may have known little about it beforehand. In short, it can market (what a crazy idea!).

What better example of pre-release, pared-down marketing than the movie poster? Today saw the release of new posters for two very different projects - the sure-to-be-a-blockbu​ster Marvel mega-film, THE AVENGERS, and Steven Soderbergh's return to mainstream cinema, outbreak flick CONTAGION. Both boast large casts (THE AVENGERS will bring together Marvel stars like Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, and newly-minted Hulk Mark Ruffalo and CONTAGION is crammed with Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne, and Gwyneth Paltrow), but despite being crammed with talent, both also now have posters that place a premium on the simplicity of letters.

THE AVENGERS poster takes this emphasis to singular letters to a new level - their teaser just gives viewers that shiny Avengers "A" - and a simple call to "assemble." For fans of Marvel and their superheroes, the poster may mean much, but to anyone not knee-deep in movie news, it's not going to give them much to go on. Heck, the poster doesn't even say the film's title. Is it going to pull in new fans? I wouldn't bet on it. Is it going to thrilling existing fans? Probably not - they want pictures of their heroes, and now, not just that well-loved "A," tease or not.

The CONTAGION poster is surely more busy and packed with information, but that emphasis on single letters is still there. But this page of marketing uses those letters to wonderful effect - crisply spelling out the film's title by way of ticking down city names for municipalities we can only guess are going to end up stamped with their own "BIOHAZARD" mark. The fear of the film is there, but though this poster touts the film's viral possibilities, it doesn't lean too much on looking too real (something like DISTRICT 9 hit high notes in their marketing by mixing pieces to make their posters and bus shelters look real, while still selling the film at hand, a hard mark to hit). Don't know much about CONTAGION? Check out this poster, and now you do. A great poster that fulfills its needs - it markets, it gives you necessary information, and it looks damn slick, too.

The teaser poster for THE AVENGERS comes to us straight from Marvel, and we owe a hat tip to Cinema Blend for the look at CONTAGION.

Which one of these posters do you prefer? Which one of these films are you most excited to see?

With her one-two punch of "Another Earth" and "Sound of My Voice," actress-writer Brit Marling had a delightful Sundance, with both the films she co-wrote playing the fest -- and both being picked up for distribution. "Another Earth" casts Marling as Rhoda, a would-be scientist whose life is shattered when she drunkenly crashes into a car -- and kills the mother and child composer John Burroughs (William Mapother) was driving home -- after she's distracted by the sudden appearance of a duplicate, planet earth hanging in the sky. Four years later, she finds John -- and the alternate earth hovers in the sky as a tantalizing suggestion that somewhere, somehow, he could still have a family and she could still have a future.

Mixing science fiction and indie drama, "Another Earth" is a striking debut -- for both Marling and director/co-writer Mike Cahill -- and a welcome respite from summertime theaters full of talking robots and singing children. We spoke with Marling in Los Angeles:

In material like 'Another Earth,' when you're writing and performing it, what's the line between science fiction and magical realism? Where do you say math ends and metaphor begins?

Marling:  I'll tell you -- I'll see if this answers your question; if not, I'll try again. I feel like in America there's this weird thing where movies ... in fantasy they're completely fantastical or they're completely real, and rarely are the two braided together. I feel like it's because we don't believe in the possibility for magic in ordinary life. When you read 'Love in the Time of Cholera,' that's really grounded in reality -- and magical, extraordinary things happen. A lot of Latin American writers and a lot of Japanese writers, they're all writing about things that are grounded in a kind of realism -- the mundane, the ordinary -- but extraordinary things are happening. Kieslowski's movies: 'Double Life of Veronique,' 'Red …' -- I don't know why, traditionally speaking, American storytelling doesn't come up with that. I don't know if it's because we come from this pioneering origin where everything's very practical and it's all about the Western and shoot and destroy. Things that come from here seem to be decidedly fantastic or decidedly real, and I think Mike and Zal (Batmangli, director of 'Sound of My Voice') and I are all interested more in the braid of the two: The possibility that you and I are sitting here doing this interview, and then we're suddenly levitating. It is of the ordinary, this extraordinary stuff.