CASTING AROUND

Burt Reynolds will play a detective who quits the force after a failed drug bust and gets involved with a hooker who’s witnessed a murder of his peers in “Rent-a-Cop,” to begin filming at the end of October in Chicago and Rome. . . . William Hurt is a TV anchorman in an untitled film written/directed by James Brooks. Brooks’ first picture since “Terms Of Endearment,” it begins filming here in February. . . . Five-time national Go-Kart champ Jesse Samples Jr. plays a race car driver who loses the championship in the feature “Born to Race,” now shooting in Charlotte, N.C.