Trio of actors join Van Sant's Harvey Milk film

It's annoying how most of the headlines for this casting went "Actors got Milk."

I'm so happy for Josh Brolin. What a great year he's having between Grindhouse, American Gangster and No Country for Old Men! Plus, he gets to go home with Diane Lane. Lucky guy. I guess licking Patricia Arquette's armpit in Flirting with Disaster paid off, huh?

Anywho, the only major person yet to cast for this film is Dianne Feinstein. (Marcia Gay Harden would be a good pick.) I'm still skeptical on Sean Penn as I think Robert Downey Jr would've been a great choice. But nevertheless, it's Gus Van Sant. That's reason enough to be excited.

From Comingsoonnet:

Josh Brolin, Emile Hirsch and James Franco are in final negotiations to appear opposite Sean Penn in Gus Van Sant's biopic Milk.

The Focus Features/Groundswell Productions film stars Penn as Harvey Milk, the country's first openly gay elected official, a San Francisco city supervisor who was assassinated in 1978.

Brolin will play Dan White, the rival politician and supervisor who shot Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone to death at City Hall. Hirsch has been cast as gay rights activist Cleve Jones, an intern and close ally of Milk's, who went on to found the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. Franco will play Scott Smith, Milk's lover and campaign manager.

Principal photography is set to begin in January in San Francisco.