Only one day before shooting was scheduled to begin, Mark Wahlberg has replaced Ryan Gosling in the Peter Jackson-directed “The Lovely Bones” for DreamWorks reports Variety.

An adaptation of the Alice Sebold novel, the story follows a couple whose world is shattered after their daughter is murdered. The girl watches over her family and her killer from heaven.

Gosling’s departure was attributed to “creative differences” and comes after the acclaimed thesp grew a beard and stacked on 20 pounds in preparation for the role of the grieving father.

Wahlberg’s quick sign-up seems to have been affected by the delay of the Darren Aronofsky-directed “The Fighter” at Paramount which he’d been in training for. That film now won’t begin production until next Fall once Aronofsky completes work on the Nic Cage-led drama “The Wrestler.”

‘Bones’ begins shooting today in Pennsylvania, where Wahlberg most recently wrapped the lead in the M. Night Shyamalan-directed “The Happening” for Fox.

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Looks like Mark Wahlberg is going to get a different blond haired, blue eyed co-star that he expected for his upcoming film, “The Fighter”. 

The Paramount Pictures drama about Boston boxer “Irish” Mickey Ward and his unlikely path to become world lightweight champion will replace Matt Damon with Pitt, who had been looking forward to a reteam with Wahlberg, his co-star in “The Departed” and a fellow Bostonian. Damon just had too many projects on his dance card to make the film on the schedule Par wanted.

It’s believed Damon gave his blessing to Pitt, his co-star in the “Ocean’s Eleven” film series.

Nice to see so much of Papa Pitt back in the theatres!

JK

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I loved Sixth Sense…I liked Signs. I hated The Village. I loathed The Lady in the Water. M. Night should just call it a day and be done with it already. But apparently he’s still making movies, and here’s some info on his next film.

John Leguizamo has joined the cast of M. Night Shyamalan’s latest thriller, “The Happening.”

Set to begin production in Philadelphia next month, “The Happening” is already slated for a June 13, 2008 release date, courtesy of 20th Century Fox.

Recent Oscar nominee Mark Wahlberg leads the cast as a science teacher who goes on the run with his family in the midst of some natural environmental disaster, some horrible happening. According to Variety, Leguizamo will play the best friend to Wahlberg’s character.

Zooey Deschanel was previously announced for the cast, though her exact capacity is unclear.

Leguizamo stars with a different Wahlberg, Mark’s brother Donnie, in Spike TV’s “The Kill Point,” which premieres this Sunday (July 22). His upcoming features include the indie “Where God Left His Shoes” and the long awaited adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “Love in the Time of Cholera.”

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Oh, he’ll always be Marky Mark to me.

The Departed‘s Mark Wahlberg and Martin Scorsese are re-teaming to create a new drama series for HBO based on Atlantic City’s growth from sleepy seaside town to entertainment and gambling mecca. Scorsese will executive produce with Wahlberg and Leverage Management’s Stephen Levinson (Wahlberg and Levinson already executive produce Entourage and the upcoming drama In Treatment). The project is being developed in conjunction with the Nelson Johnson book Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City, which HBO has optioned. Scorsese previously visited Atlantic City in his 1986 movie The Color of Money.

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MARK WAHLBERG is glad filmmaker ANG LEE passed over him when he cast BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, because the Oscar nominee was “a little creeped out” at the prospect of having to play a gay cowboy.

The DEPARTED star reveals he and pal JOAQUIN PHOENIX were originally considered for the roles of ENNIS DEL MAR and JACK TWIST in the 2005 film – but both felt uncomfortable about sex act scenes in a tent.

Wahlberg explains, “I met with Ang Lee on that movie, I read 15 pages of the script and got a little creeped out. It was very graphic, descriptive – the spitting on the hand, getting ready to do the thing.

“I told Ang Lee, ‘I like you, you’re a talented guy, if you want to talk about it more…’ Thankfully, he didn’t.” The parts eventually went to JAKE GYLLENHAAL and HEATH LEDGER and, though Wahlberg feels it’s a film he must see, he has yet to watch Brokeback Mountain.
He adds, “I didn’t rush to see Brokeback, it’s just not my deal… Obviously, it was done in taste – look how it was received.”

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Boston-born actors and The Departed co-stars Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg are set to star in a new film about boxer ‘Irish’ Micky Ward. Paramount Pictures has fast-tracked “The Fighter,” a drama about the Massachusetts-born boxer’s unlikely road to the world lightweight title.

Ward had a series of tough losses to Arturo Gatti that are considered among the best and most brutal bouts of the past 50 years. Wahlberg would play Ward, with Damon taking the role of Danny Ecklund, Ward’s half-brother who battled drugs and the temptation of crime to become the boxer’s trainer.

House executive producer Paul Attanasio is currently working on a rewrite of the script, and if approved by Wahlberg and Damon, the picture would begin shooting in Massachusetts this summer.