Deadline reports that Yvonne Strahovski, star of NBC’s Chuck, has been cast in I, Frankenstein. The movie is being directed by Stuart Beattie, who is best known as a writer of the first Pirates of the Caribbean film, as well as Collateral and G.I. Joe. Aaron Eckhart (Battle Los Angeles) and Miranda Otto (The Lord of the Rings) are also set to star.

The film is based on Kevin Grevioux’s graphic novel, and follows Dr. Frankenstein’s monster (Eckhart), who has survived to modern times and goes by the name Adam. Adam travels to a gothic metropolis, where he is caught up in a battle between two immortal clans. Strahovski will play his love interest, a scientist working on reanimating the dead.

I, Frankenstein is being filmed in Australia, and is due to be released on February 22, 2013.

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Here’s another one of those ‘what if’ casting situations for another iconic role. In a new interview screenwriter Stuart Beattie, who is credited as one of the “Story By” writers for Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, revealed that he original wrote the role of Captain Jack Sparrow with Hugh Jackman in mind, and even named the character after the actor.

From Fox411:

“I initially wrote that character with Hugh Jackman in mind,” screenwriter Stuart Beattie told Pop Tarts at the Advance Lounge Chair series in Los Angeles. “Hence the name Captain JACK Sparrow.”

At the time, Jackman was a prominent actor in Beattie’s homeland of Australia, but was not yet a big on the international scene, prompting the folks at Disney to dismiss Beattie’s casting contribution and instead hunt down Johnny Depp for the role.

Luckily for Jackman he landed the role of Wolverine which has kept him busy over the years, but it’s always interesting to consider what could have been. As we prepare for our fourth outing with Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow it’s hard to imagine anyone else in the role, but I think Jackman could have made it his own.

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Pirates of the Caribbean and Australia screenwriter Stuart Beattie spoke to Collider recently about a few of his upcoming projects, one of which is Tarzan: Lord of the Jungle. The last we heard on the vine swinger was that G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra director Stephen Sommers signed on to direct last September. So what’s happening?

BEATTIE: It’s at Warner Brothers. They’re deciding how much money… there’s like a battle over the budget of that. People do it one way, studio wants it another way and they’re just trying to find a middle ground.

So do you think that could be [Stephen Sommers'] next project, if the budget comes together?

BEATTIE: Yeah. Yeah, if they reach an agreement, yeah. Very much could be.

With Tarzan, is that a modern day thing? What’s your take on it?

BEATTIE: Oh no. It’s a period. It’s a period. You have to be “Tarzan” period, I think. It’s kind of like…”Tarzan”, I think, probably the most filmed story of all, so our belief in doing a “Tarzan” movie today was you couldn’t go tell the raised by gorillas and loincloths and “Me: Tarzan and You: Jane”-story because it’s been done so much and it’s just not interesting anymore. So it was much more big romantic action-adventure film with supernatural stuff and witch doctor and lots of really fun stuff. And mythic Africa, like that deep dark heart of Africa stuff, you know, where the trees are twice as big and the vines stretched forever and the canopy is a whole world in itself and just really cool looking place to spend a couple of hours.

I’d actually be interested in seeing a film like that…just without the director of Van Helsing in charge. People such as Guillermo del Toro have been involved in making a Tarzan movie in the past, so if we just get a typical dumb summer blockbuster i’d be a bit disappointed.

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