Casting Net: Johnny Depp returns to 'Wonderland'?

• Johnny Depp (The Lone Ranger) may be heading back to Wonderland. An unconfirmed report states that he will be donning his Mad Hatter cap once again for an Alice in Wonderland sequel that replaces Tim Burton with James Bobin as director. The original film was a huge hit for Disney, and although the recent disappointment of The Lone Ranger doesn’t guarantee its success, the Alice sequel combined with a fifth Pirates movie could turn Depp into the permanent Disney poster boy. [Deadline]

• Gaby Hoffmann (Crystal Fairy) is joining the cast of the Veronica Mars movie. “I think we are all a part of a very exciting tide shift in movie making history,” she told Kickstarter supporters of the project helmed by Rob Thomas. The former child actress, who has recently gotten her name back out there thanks to a turn as a Manic Pixie Dream Girl in Crystal Fairy, joins much of the original Veronica Mars cast for the reunion film.

• Alison Pill will fight child zombies in Cooties, a film about a bunch of kids turned rampaging beasts. She is joined by Rainn Wilson, Jack McBrayer, and Jorge Garcia — teachers who must survive after a diseased chicken nugget turns their elementary school students into monsters. Elijah Wood plays a substitute teacher who takes charge of the team of educators. [Deadline]

• Catherine Tate (“Doctor Who”) will co-star in Superbob, a story of unlikely hero Bob, an unassuming British postman who finds himself with superpowers caused by radioactivity. Brett Goldstein (Donnie Brasco) and Natalie Tena (Game of Thrones) also star in the comedy. [THR]

• Jennifer Ehle (Zero Dark Thirty) and Andre Holland (42) help to round out the cast of Black and White, an interracial family drama also starring Kevin Costner. Costner plays a widower fighting for custody of his granddaughter with the child’s grandmother (Octavia Spencer). Holland plays his son-in-law, a drug addict. [Deadline]