Casting Report For Brad Bird's 'Tomorrowland' Seems To Confirm Plot Rumors

A few film creators are working overtime to ensure that their upcoming projects stay as secret as possible. Christopher Nolan and his cinematographer/protege director Wally Pfister are one such team, and JJ Abrams and Damon Lindelof are another. Accordingly, Brad Bird's next film, Tomorrowland, co-scripted by Lindelof (with Jeff Jensen), is a project about which we know relatively little.

We know that Tomorrowland is inspired in part by artifacts and ideas from Walt Disney. And we've heard that it has some similarity, if only in tone, to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Lindelof has said that aliens aren't a big factor, and we know that George Clooney plays the lead and Hugh Laurie the antagonist. And we had heard a plot description that may or may not have been true.

Now, a bit of casting news seems to confirm the plot.

The news is that Raffey Cassidy, the actress who played a young Snow White in Snow White and the Huntsman, has been cast in an important Tomorrowland role. The specifics of that role give away something big about the film, however, and so we'll run down the details after the break. Potential spoilers follow.

THR reports that Cassidy's role is that of "a young girl robot who has been around for decades. Also a key factor: she knows several fighting styles. She has a previous relationship with Clooney's character, a bitter inventor."

That's a pretty big reveal, and one which seems to put the film closer to something like AI than Close Encounters. Combine it with this reported plot description to get a better picture of the film:

A teenage girl, a genius middle-aged man (who was kicked out of Tomorrowland) and a pre-pubescent girl robot attempt to get to and unravel what happened to Tomorrowland, which exists in an alternative dimension, in order to save Earth.

Clooney is the middle-aged man; Laurie is reportedly the guy who once kicked him out of Tomorrowland. HitFix was the source of the plot reveal, and has even more detail. Frankly, I'd advise you not to read it all. The secrecy, such as it can be maintained, is good for the film. Everything above will likely be revealed in trailers for the movie, but hopefully some of the other secrets will remain hidden for a while longer.