Vincent Cassel is the New Philip Seymour Hoffman in ‘Child 44’

It was just a couple days ago when we were complaining about the curious lack of Vincent Cassel in our current movies and then rejoicing as he stepped in for a dropping out Oscar Isaac as the lead of a cult drama called Partisan. Now there’s reason for even more celebration—though once again bittersweet celebration—because it’s being reported by Deadline that yet another talented actor is having to drop out of a movie, and the situation is once again being handled by Cassel stepping in and taking his place. Suddenly we’re up to our elbows in Vincent Cassel.

The movie in question is director Daniel Espinosa’s Soviet-era thriller Child 44 and the actor dropping out is Philip Seymour Hoffman. There doesn’t seem to have ever been any official announcement of what role Hoffman was going to be playing in the film, but once you trade out a Philip Seymour Hoffman for a Vincent Cassel, it’s probably safe to start assuming that it’s someone creepy and evil. Especially when you’re talking about a movie about a bunch of dead little kids.

Child 44 is an adaptation of a Tom Rob Smith novel of the same name, and it’s about a disgraced Soviet agent who gets tasked with investigating a series of child murders and subsequently finds clues that lead him all the way up to the government’s top brass. It stars Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, Gary Oldman, Joel Kinnaman, Jason Clarke, Paddy Considine, and now Cassel. Even without a Philip Seymour Hoffman, that’s still some ensemble.