According to The Hollywood Reporter, Vincent Cassel has signed on to star in David Cronenberg's EASTERN PROMISES for Focus Features and BBC Films.

Written by Steve Knight ("Dirty Pretty Things"), the London-based thriller centers on a nurse (Naomi Watts) investigating the identity of a young Russian prostitute who dies in childbirth. She unwittingly stumbles into a Russian police operation that seeks to expose a major Russian Mafia prostitution ring. Cassel has been cast as Petrid, whose family owns a Russian brothel.