Neil Burger's Dark Fields adaptation spent a long time kicking around in development while his intended leading man, Shia LaBeouf, either fought off evil Transformers or recovered from his broken hand. But now that Shia is out and Bradley Cooper has replaced him, things are humming along nicely and the cast is getting even better. Variety reports that Robert De Niro will be joining the cast of the film, which starts filming in May in Philadelphia.

De Niro will play a financial mogul hot on the tail of Cooper's character, who discovers a designer drug that makes him smarter and basically better than the rest of us. While most people might worry about De Niro in the part-- he hasn't exactly been in the habit of making good movies lately-- I've got my questions about Cooper. He's already so smarmy and self-satisfied in his roles that I can only imagine him being intolerable when made smarter. Though with De Niro hunting him, I can only imagine Cooper's character will be facing some serious consequences for all this newfound intelligence. So long as he takes at least a punch or two, I can probably get over my aversion to his stupid grin.