Nicolas Cage, Donald Sutherland Join CG Astro Boy Cast

IMAGI Studios has announced that Summit Entertainment (Michael Clayton, American Pie, Babel) will release its 2009 computer-graphics film adaptation of Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy manga worldwide except in Japan, Hong Kong, and China. IMAGI itself will handle the distribution in those three regions.

IMAGI Studio also announced that the cast now includes Oscar-winning actor Nicolas Cage (Leaving Las Vegas, The Rock, National Treasure), Donald Sutherland (M*A*S*H, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Dirty Sexy Money), Nathan Lane (The Lion King, The Producers, The Birdcage), Bill Nighy (Love Actually, Underworld, Pirates of the Caribbean) and Eugene Levy (A Mighty Wind, American Pie, Curious George). As previously announced, Freddie Highmore (Finding Neverland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Arthur and the Invisibles) will play the title role of Astro Boy, a robot abandoned by its inventor and raised by a kind professor to protect the world.

Space Jam's Timothy Harris is writing the film, and Flushed Away's David Bowers is directing. Warner Bros. Pictures and The Weinstein Company were previously announced as the film's global distributors, but no new word has been given on their current status on the project.