Mila Kunis is joining the cast of the Oscar-winning director-writer Paul Haggis’s drama “Third Person,” with James Franco and Casey Affleck in negotiations to join the film.

“Third Person,” which has a budget of $28 million, is heading for a mid-October start date and is being produced and financed by Corsan Films.

Set in Rome, New York and Paris, where the film will shoot, “Third Person” features three interlocking love stories.

Previously announced cast members include Liam Neeson, who plays a journalist, and Olivia Wilde, who plays a New York gossip columnist.

Corsan founder Paul Breuls is producing with Haggis and his producing partner, Michael Nozik. Haggis will direct from his own script. CAA is co-representing domestic rights with Paradigm. Corsan is handling international rights.

Breuls and his president of sales, Pascal Borno, have brought a number of high-profile films to the marketplace recently and are heading into the Toronto International Film Festival next month with a strong slate.

Recent announcements include the Robert de Niro/John Travolta-starrer “Killing Season” from director Mark Steven Johnson; “Emperor,” an epic adventure from Lee Tamahori, which Corsan is financing and producing; Roland Joffe’s time travel film “Singularity,” which stars Josh Hartnett; and the Chet Baker biopic “The Prince of Cool” which Breuls is set to direct.

Breuls founded Corsan as a film production and financing company in 1989 in Antwerp, the Belgian fashion capital which is better known for producing some of the country’s more outlandish fashion designers, including Martin Margiela and Bernhard Wilhelm.

In 2003, he created the Corsan Tax Fund, which finances all of the company’s films. In 2008, he added Corsan World Sales. Haggis and Nozik’s production company Hwy 61 recently announced it was moving forward on a number of other projects, including a father-son apartheid project to be produced together with Olympus Pictures, and written and directed by Mukunda Michael Dewil.

Kunis is repped by CAA.

She had planned to visit for two weeks at the end of her seven-month MDNA tour, which features her son Rocco dancing on stage and daughter Lourdes working in wardrobe.

The singer acknowledged she had “made a lot of fans angry” and asked them to forgive her, promising she would make it up to them.

“Know that when I come to Australia I will have made the wait worth your while and will put on the greatest show on earth,” she said.

Queen of pop Madonna has said she scrapped the Australian leg of her world tour for a second time to stay at home with her children.

In a recorded audio-only message on her official website, the 53-year-old singer apologised for letting Australian fans down but said her children needed her more, reported Herald Sun.

“I have two scales I have to weigh in front of me, my job as a singer and entertainer and my job as a mother. At the end of the year I really feel I would be an irresponsible parent if I did not stop the tour and be home with them.

“My daughter’s going to be leaving home soon – she’s almost 16 years old. I feel really bad because I do not take your love and support for me for granted,” she said.

Madonna flagged her intentions to tour Down Under back in January following intense lobbying from fans after she skipped Australia on her Sticky and Sweet tour in 2008.