IESB reports that Chris Marquette and Dan Byrd have locked in the lead roles in Kyle Newman's upcoming film, Revenge of the Nerds.

Marquette will play the lead nerd role of Max Foster. Byrd will portray the second male lead, Owen DiMarco, the "horn dog" best friend, whose college major is women's studies.

This will be the second time that Chris Marquette has worked with Kyle Newman, the first being in the yet to be released Fanboys from the Weinstein Company.

Dan Byrd has appeared in Cinderella Story, The Hills Have Eyes and in Lonely Hearts with John Travolta and James Gandolfini.
Chris MarquetteChris Marquette and Dan Byrd will be joined by Efren Ramirez and Katie Cassidy, the only other "Nerds" castmembers to be announced thus far. Efren Ramirez will be portraying Santiago the foreign exchange student from Spain and Katie Cassidy will be Suzy Stone, the campus queen and head of the Pi Delta Pi sorority.

Revenge of the Nerds is a Fox Atomic release that will start shooting in Atlanta Georgia the second week of October, 2006. Adam Jay Epstein, Adam Goldberg and Andrew Jacobson penned the script. McG is producing with Stephanie Savage and David Manpearl.

A raucous re-imagining of the comedy classic. Adams College is turned upside down by a group of freshmen misfits who redefine the term "nerd." As they try to form their own frat, the nerds incur the wrath of the ultimate alpha males, the infamous Alpha Beta fraternity. The nerds refuse to go down without a fight, waging an all-out battle against the notorious jocks during Greek Week.

Revenge of the Nerds is in development .