Last time we checked in with Bryan Singer’s long-developing fantasy adventure Jack the Giant Killer, the director was still busy looking for cast members, including the all-important titular role. But while it appears he still hasn’t quite locked in his choice for Jack (or at least hasn’t told anyone yet), he has scared up a villain for the movie, with The Lovely Bones’ Stanley Tucci cast as a villain and Bill Nighy and John Kassir pulling double duty as a two-headed giant.

With a script that has passed through the hands and keyboards of Mark Bomback, Darren Lemke and Singer collaborator Christopher McQuarrie, Jack is set in the kingdom of Cloister, where a peace has existed for decades between humans and their giant neighbours. But the détente is shattered when a princess from the human side is kidnapped and a young hero must rescue her.

All, however, is not quite what it seems – as the evil Roderick (Tucci), one of the king’s trusted advisors, is something of a scheming sort who has ambitions to run the joint himself.

Whoever plays Jack – Aaron Johnson and Nicholas Hoult are among those in contention, though the role could always go to a complete unknown – will also have to face Fallon, the leader of the giants, who happens to have one noggin that looks like Bill Nighy and one with the visage of Race to Witch Mountain’s Kassir.

With filming set to begin next month in London, expect the rest of the casting announcements to come thick and fast. At least, we hope so; no one needs the slow drip feed that plagued our brains when the Singer-produced X-Men: First Class was recruiting its mutants…