Never Was: According to The Hollywood Reporter, Ian McKellen, Aaron Eckhart, Brittany Murphy, Nick Nolte and Alan Cumming are in negotiations for the indie drama Never Was.

Marking the directorial debut of writer Joshua Michael Stern, the feature follows a Yale graduate (Eckhart) who gets a job at the mental institution where his novelist father (Nolte) spent the last years of his life. Once there, he meets a schizophrenic man (McKellen) who proves a mysterious link to his father's material. Murphy plays a reporter.

The film is heading for a September shoot in Vancouver.