This is what happens when casting directors use chicken bones and ancient runes to try to drum up a cast for a film – you get an ever-changing list. Take fantasy adventure The Seventh Son, which has been hunting for younger talent to take on its lead. Both Alex Pettyfer and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides’ Sam Claflin have been considered to play demon-hunter’s apprentice Tom, but now it appears that Ben Barnes has won the role.

Variety reports that Barnes – last seen in Killing Bono and as Caspian in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – will be playing the young farmhand who discovers he has an aptitude for perceiving the supernatural. He’s taught by Master Gregory (Jeff Bridges), who tries to guide the lad in his magical ways. And he’ll have to deal with Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore) an evil witch with her own plans for Tom. If he signs, Barnes will also have to deal with Swedish actress Alicia Vikander, who is signed as Mother Malkin’s daughter Alice, a girl still deciding whether she’ll follow the dark side or the light.

Warner Bros. and Legendary Films are adapting the first book in Joseph Delaney’s Wardstone Chronicles, clearly figuring this could be a possible new Potter. Mongol’s Sergey Bodrov is directing, and the film’s being aimed at a 2013 release.