Zooey Deschanel Joins M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening

Al Gore and Leonardo Dicaprio’s sure-to-be favorite movie of 2008, M. Night Shyamalan’s natural disaster thriller “The Happening” gets its leading lady in Zooey Deschanel (“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”), reports Variety. The film already landed its leading man in Mark Wahlberg a while back. In “The Happening”, a man takes his family on the run when an apocalyptical natural crisis threatens to end civilization, but it turns out it was just aliens disguised as Crab People. Wait, that’s not true. Or is it?

Shooting for “The Happening” begins August in Philadelphia, Shyamalan’s hometown and preferred place of business. Coming off the critical and box office flop “The Lady in the Water”, M. Night’s got a lot to make up. Pandering to Hollywood’s current wide-eyed obsession with all things Green ain’t such a bad idea.

Deschanel is coming off “Bridge to Terabithia”, the animated “Surf’s Up”, and the what’s-happened-to-it Brad Pitt Western “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”.