Rachel Nichols has been cast as Tamara in director Marcus Nispel’s Conan according to Latino Review. She will be joining Jason Momoa (Conan), Mickey Rouke (Corin/Conan’s father), and possibly Stephen Lang, as he’s been offered the role of Khalar Singh (the villain). She appears to have beaten out Cloverfield’s Jessica Lucas and The L Word’s Sarah Shahi for the role.

With shooting scheduled to begin later this month, expect a few more casting announcements in the very near future. For more on Rachel Nichols character, hit the jump:

According to the leaked casting breakdown:

Tamara is 18 to 24 years old, Caucasian or Middle Eastern, open to all ethnicities; beautiful, studious, correct, a novitiate of a Greek influenced monastery. A master of martial arts, she has been trained to be the Queen’s servant, bodyguard and best friend. She and many other female bodyguards to the queen have been in hiding most of their lives because of the curse of Acheron, which would take the queen’s life to bring almost immortal power to its king. When Khalar Singh, a powerful warlord with ambitions to become the king of Acheron, storms the monastery and captures all of the novitiates, she is separated from Ilira, the one she must protect. With all of her strength and will, Tamara is determined to find and rescue her. She finds herself in league with Conan because of a mutual need to find Khalar Singh. She is not in the least intimidated by Conan’s size or grim demeanor and their alliance eventually blossoms into something that surprises them both… LEAD

It seems that Paramount wants more of an elite commando unit on the big screen
. Collider is reporting that a writer has been hired for a sequel to G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.

We reported back in August that this sequel was being put into development at Paramount, but there has been nothing said on the project until now. While the site didn’t find out who the writer was, it seems a script was ordered and the studio is going ahead with their sequel plans. It also wasn’t immediately clear if Stephen Sommers would return to direct the sequel or not.

The site also noted that the main cast members, including Dennis Quaid, Channing Tatum, Sienna Miller, Ray Park, Rachel Nichols, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Marlon Wayans, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, have already signed on for sequels.

Click Here! to read the site’s full article. We’ll be sure to keep you posted on any G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra sequel developments as soon as we have more information.

UPDATE: 1/7/10 2 PM ETCollider has updated their own story with the news that the writer that was hired was actually the writing team of Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who wrote the 2009 hit film Zombieland. The duo also recently signed on to write the Deadpool spin-off film as well.