Posted Aug 20th 2008 3:02PM by Eric Kohn
Filed under: Comedy, Casting, New Releases, Fandom, DIY/Filmmaking, Interviews
Above: Rainn Wilson lets his hair down for The Rocker.
Fans of
Rainn Wilson's offbeat, hilarious and strangely endearing performance as Dwight Schrute on NBC's
The Office might expect him to transition into film work with straightforward comedy, and
The Rocker confirms that suspicion. However, they might not realize the serious professional motives behind his choice. In the movie, directed by
Peter Cattaneo (
The Full Grown Monty), Wilson plays a grown-up dolt named Fish with a scary fixation on classic rock. Abandoned by the band Vesuvius in his teens -- before they became a commercial phenomenon -- Fish spends the next twenty years working deadbeat jobs and wishing things happened differently. Naturally, he gets a second chance: When the opportunity rolls around to drum for his nephew's high school, Fish goes for it. Ageism and slapstick humor ensue.
While not exactly a classic,
The Rocker proves Wilson has the charisma to carry a movie. The script could use some polishing, but Wilson manages to play a completely dysfunctional human being without ever becoming an annoyance. It's a testament to his skill as an actor with calculated timing. The humor emerges from the naturalism of his performances, which make you believe in the outlandish characters he portrays. In a conversation with
Cinematical recently, Wilson elaborated on his particular strategies as his career advances, reminisced about his days as a New York theater actor, and shed some light on a few upcoming projects.
Continue reading Interview: Rainn Wilson
Posted Aug 20th 2008 2:02PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Animation, Classics, Music & Musicals, Casting
Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? First you become Tromeo, and now -- Gnomeo. Well, people have been trying to rename you to Gnomeo for a while now. Heck, last time
Cinematical wrote about the upcoming CGI feature
Gnomeo and Juliet,
it was 2006 and Kate Winslet and professional voice actor Greg Ellis were attached to voice the film. Almost two years later, the garden gnome romance is still hiking its way to the big screen, and
The Hollywood Reporter posts that
James McAvoy and
Emily Blunt are in negotiations to voice the leads.
While I'm bummed to see another voice actor lose his work, there are some quirks to look forward to with this feature -- namely Elton John classics. At first, a whole new set of romantic songs were going to be penned by Tim Rice and John, but that didn't work out so we get the good ol' classics. Will Gnomeo fall off Juliet's balcony and sing: "I'm Still Standing"? Will the two dance, canoodle, and sing: "Tiny Dancer"? Will "Candle in the Wind" be adapted once again for the tragic finale? Oh, the possibilities.
Now, it's also said to be a "loose and edgy" adaptation, so perhaps these gnomes will get their happy ending -- although I'd hope it wouldn't stray too far from the original. Whatever the case, it'll be a long wait. The project is currently in the storyboard stage, with plans to wrap up production by 2010.
Posted Aug 19th 2008 7:45PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Action, Casting, RumorMonger, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
While he isn't really a "super" hero (at least not in the innate superpower sense),
William Katt -aka- Ralph Hinkley -aka-
The Greatest American Hero has always been my top dog. So, I've been pretty apprehensive about
a big-screen reboot of the wacky '80s series -- my nights plagued with nightmares of Zac Efron, topped with a really bad perm, flying into walls.
But at the very least, the new feature might get some old-school cameos. According to
MTV,
Connie Sellecca says that the famous trio -- her, Katt, and the splendid
Robert Culp, have all received offers for cameos in the remake. Whether they take Stephen J. Cannell up on the offer remains to be seen. But at least that's something. In the meantime, there's also a
comic book and animated webisodes on the way, so Katt-style Ralph is far from finished.
And as an added bonus to you lucky goons in the states, the MTV link above contains a clip of Culp taking issue with Ralph being called a superhero.
Posted Aug 19th 2008 7:02PM by Christopher Campbell
Filed under: Comedy, Documentary, Drama, Casting, RumorMonger
If you squint your eyes just right and look at a photo of the late comedian
Bill Hicks, he kind of resembles a young
Russell Crowe (or vice versa). So, it would have been really cool if the Australian actor had played Hicks around ten years ago, when he was still in his 30s. But if we've learned anything from Kevin Spacey and Mike Myers (respectively, star of the Bobby Darin biopic
Beyond the Sea and star of an upcoming Keith Moon biopic titled
See Me Feel Me), you're never too old to play an icon who died young, and therefore we must accept the fact that at close to 50 years old, Crowe is likely to portray Hicks, who died from cancer at age 32. Fortunately for Crowe, he's good enough that it shouldn't be too hard to believe such a portrayal.
The Oscar-winning actor
is quoted in The Sydney Morning Herald saying he's involved with a Hicks bio, "which is going from treatment to draft stage with Kiwi writer
Mark Staufer." Never mind that the quote doesn't sound like it was actually spoken by anyone, let alone Crowe, the article is mostly about how the actor is spending time with his family now that Ridley Scott's
Nottingham has been postponed. Crowe also references other projects, including an unnamed documentary and the surfing gang movie
My Brother's Keeper, based on the documentary
Bra Boys, which Crowe narrated.
Stuart Beattie, who co-wrote the doc, is currently working on a second draft of its adaptation.
Posted Aug 19th 2008 5:02PM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Casting, Shorts, Fandom
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Prior to our interview with Anna Faris earlier today,
Cinematical managed to spend some time with three of her co-stars in
The House Bunny, namely
Rumer Willis,
Emma Stone and
Katharine McPhee (who's recording an album now for a Spring '09 release, in case you happen to be a die hard McPhee nerd). And, yes, it's true what they say about sitting next to an
American Idol finalist -- those butterflies in your stomach
are real and they desperately want (and need) to hear a Whitney Houston cover for some odd reason.
In speaking with Rumer Willis about her upcoming projects, she mentioned that her mother, Demi Moore, had just finished work on her directorial debut -- a short film for Glamour Reel Moments called
Streak. While Willis was tight-lipped on the film's plot, she did say it starred herself,
Brittany Snow and
Sarah Wright (who also has a role in
The House Bunny). Other women who've directed shorts for GRM include Jennifer Aniston, Bryce Dallas Howard and Gwyneth Paltrow. You can find out more about the program over on
its official website, and one imagines we'll catch
Streak a little later this year.
Posted Aug 19th 2008 2:32PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Horror, Thrillers, Casting
It would be great to see the old Superman, Dean Cain, tamed by the purr of a Jaguar, but
Maneater is a little less Hall & Oates and a little more blood and guts.
The Hollywood Reporter posts that
Dean Cain,
Conrad Janis (
The Cable Guy),
Stephen Lunsford (
Bratz),
Walter Phelan (
House of 1000 Corpses),
Maximillian Roeg (
7th Heaven), and
Lacy Phillips (
Pushing Twilight) have signed up to take on the Native American legend, Wendigo.
As Elisabeth told us
last month, director Michael Emanuel's version of Wendigo will center on a small-town sheriff who used to be an FBI profiler. When a bunch of strange murders pop up, he puts his old talents to the test, "only to discover that the monster he's profiling might be himself." See, the Wendigo spirit is said to enter through acts of cannibalism or dreams, so we'll have to wait and see if someone slips him a piece human meat, or he gets pulled into a bad dreamworld.
There's no word on who is playing what role, but IMDb does have the character names listed. Seeing that Cain's at the top, I think it's safe to assume that he's our Wendigo dude.
Posted Aug 19th 2008 2:03PM by Christopher Campbell
Filed under: Comedy, Independent, Casting, Focus Features, Oscar Watch, Cinematical Indie
How do you follow-up a broad comedy starring the biggest names in Hollywood,
George Clooney and
Brad Pitt? If you're the Coen brothers, you apparently hit the car in reverse and make your next effort a darker story and cast relative unknowns.
Variety reports that the newly minted Oscar winning directors
Joel and
Ethan Coen have cast Tony-nominated stage actor
Michael Stuhlbarg (
The Pillowman) and TV's
Richard Kind (
Mad About You;
Spin City) for the two lead roles in
A Serious Man, their next film after this fall's
Burn After Reading. The actors will play brothers in the 1967-set black comedy, which returns the Coens to
Fargo territory by placing the story in their home turf of Minneapolis.
In fact, when
we first learned of
A Serious Man, more than a year ago (and almost a year before the Coens each won 3 Academy Awards, for writing, directing and producing
No Country for Old Men), the script was described as being "in the vein of
Fargo." Now we get a little inkling more about the plot of
Serious: Stuhlberg will play a professor named Larry Gopnik, whose wife is leaving him and whose "socially inept" brother (Kind) won't leave the house. Hopefully, to further repeat the analogy to their double-Oscar-winning 1996 film, the Coens can cast
Frances McDormand as the wife, she can then win another Academy Award and Kind (pictured above) can, like
William H. Macy before him, finally go from near-obscurity to well-known, well-respected supporting actor within the next decade.
Posted Aug 19th 2008 10:02AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Thrillers, Casting, Deals, Warner Brothers, Newsstand, Tom Cruise, Comic/Superhero/Geek
Tom Cruise has decided it's his turn to get in on the comic book action -- and he's teaming up with
Sam Raimi to do it. According to
The Hollywood Reporter, the duo is setting up the DC/Wildstorm comic series
Sleeper at Warner Bros. At this point, Raimi is only producing, but Cruise is hoping to star.
Penned by Ed Brubaker,
Sleeper was a 12-issue series set in the Wildstorm universe, which means it steers clear of all those heroic crossovers. (It actually involves a villain created by Alan Moore, though, which should be a terrific selling point.) It centers on Holden Carver, a man who was fused with an alien artifact that makes him impervious to pain, and allows him to pass that torment onto whoever he touches. Being a sensitive sort, Carver wants to get rid of his powers -- but tough luck, he's working undercover in the Tao criminal organization. There's a
Departed-like twist that leaves Carver stranded within the organization -- but he falls in love with one member, Miss Misery, while befriending another, the cuddly Genocide Jones. All the while he's torn between the work he's doing, his powers, and his relationships with unsavory people.
Sleeper has been embroiled in complicated rights issues, having been set up at several different studios over the years. Warner Bros,
post-Watchmen lawsuit, is being extra careful to make everything black and white this time -- and Cruise's interest has already spurred the detangling process. (Which is kind of funny, if you remember the rumors that he was in the running to play Oxymandias -- and Adrian's fascination with how Alexander the Great undid a complicated knot. Wheels within wheels!)
I know there's some
Sleeper fans out there -- it's one of those quiet, but well received books that never get enough attention. How do you feel about Cruise playing the lead?
Posted Aug 18th 2008 7:03PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Comedy, Casting
90210 might be gearing up for more high school magic, but
Ian Ziering has other projects to worry about. Serious projects that challenge his skills and should throw him into serious Oscar territory. No, I kid.
Variety reports that he does have a new film on the way, but it certainly won't be a great one for the acting scorecard. He's going to star in a new National Lampoon's "sword-and-sandals spoof" called
The Legend of Awesomest Maximus. But wait -- there's more. He'll play "Testiclees, a hero who can only be wounded in his gonads." I thought that was any man, but maybe he's got it worse.
In other news, Michael Cera isn't the only
Arrested Development kid getting work. Aside from showing up in
Bart Got a Room,
Variety reports that Mae 'Maeby' Fünke, otherwise known as
Alia Shawkat, has nabbed a role in
Whip It! She's playing a gal named Pash, and is joining the awesome female-led cast of Ellen Page, Drew Barrymore, Marcia Gay Harden, Juliette Lewis, Zoe Bell, and Kristen Wiig. This pic better be good, because the cast is making me really anxious to see this sucker.
Posted Aug 17th 2008 4:02PM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Comedy, Casting, RumorMonger, Fandom, Newsstand
Well, we have some good news and some bad news to report during this glorious summer weekend. Which do you want first? Since I always pick the bad news first, we'll go with that: Apparently, Quentin Tarantino is having some trouble getting some of his potential
Inglorious Bastards cast members to sign on the dotted line. Not only has David Krumholtz dropped out (and replaced by
Samm Levine from
Freaks and Geeks, so says
AICN), but unfortunately the same has happened with
Simon Pegg.
Over on his
MySpace page, Pegg has told fans that he will no longer be co-starring in the Tarantino WWII flick, but will instead (and here's the good news) reunite with Nick Frost for a film called
Paul (first reported wayyy back
in September of 2007). This time, however, Edgar Wright will not be behind the camera, as Pegg said
Superbad's Greg Mottola has taken over directing duties.
Paul will follow two comic book geeks (Pegg and Frost) on some sort of road trip across America. No word yet on who'll be replacing Pegg in
Bastards, though I can name more than a few Brits who'd do a bang-up job.
Posted Aug 16th 2008 1:32PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Independent, Casting, Deals, Cinematical Indie
A few news bites for the end of the week:
- Gregory Smith, who played one of the Stantons in The Seeker: The Dark is Rising, has picked up a starring gig, according to Variety. He will lead the indie drama In My Pocket, which will be the directorial debut of David Lisle Johnson III from a script he co-wrote with Joseph Ferrugio. The film will follow the travails of addiction and focus on two young men -- one is the good guy set for med school who fails out because of his addiction, while the other is a guitarist for a rock band who gets replaced. And for you Empire Records fans out there, Brendan Sexton III (Warren) also has a role.
- Meanwhile... Kenneth Lonergan, scribe of Analyze That and Gangs of New York, is getting ready for a celebration. The Hollywood Reporter posts that he has signed on to pen the screenplay for Father's Day -- that flick that Ashton Kutcher is producing. The plan is to make the film "a multigenerational look at fatherhood, centering around a father and son who have never gotten along but who coincidentally have baby sons at the same time." It's certainly not the most original premise out there, but we'll see if this can become this generation's Parenthood.
Posted Aug 15th 2008 7:02PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Drama, Casting
Oh, that pesky Mel Gibson. I have to admit, while I used to be a fan, the last ten years have pulled me out of the Gibson fold. I wasn't planning to see
Edge of Darkness, but with this latest casting notice, the pesky buggers have left me no choice.
The Hollywood Reporter posts that the wonderful, needs-to-be-in-more-films
Danny Huston is signing on to the cast, along with
Shawn Roberts (
Diary of the Dead) and
Bojana Novakovic (
Seven Pounds). The Martin Campbell-helmed feature will focus on a veteran cop played by Gibson, "whose only grown-up child (Novakovic) is murdered on the steps of his home. The cop unearths his daughter's secret life and discovers a world of corporate cover-ups and government collusion." Huston is going to be a shady businessman, I presume somehow entangled in this mess, while Roberts will play the boyfriend of the daughter.
With a little
Robert De Niro on board to clean up messes, this could be one interesting film.
Posted Aug 15th 2008 5:03PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Casting, RumorMonger, Fandom
As we all know from
The Dark Knight commercials, Two Face makes his grand, grotesque entrance. But there's an interesting twist in the whole story now.
Beware of spoilers ahead ...
... spoilers below ...Did he die -- or didn't he? That's the big question. He sure looked like he did, but then again, there was that whole spiel about how falling such a short distance won't kill a man. Why put that in there if there's no point? And couldn't the lovely Commissioner Gordon have lied to save the hopes of Gotham's populace?
I like to believe he lived, for a myriad of reasons. But if a few new tie-in books are to be believed, the dream is completely dead, and the nightmare won't continue.
IGN reports that in the new novelization, it says: "Dent was sprawled, neck twisted, the mutilated side of his face exposed, his left eye open and staring sightlessly. He was obviously dead." This is joined with the shooting script, which says: "Dent lies at the bottom of the hole, his neck broken. DEAD."
I am not entirely convinced. There's just something about using the word "obviously" that seems too redundant for it to be accurate. All of the emphasis of his death just makes it seem like they are trying too hard to convince us. But maybe that's just my hope to see more
Aaron Eckhart.
What say you?
Posted Aug 15th 2008 11:32AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Independent, Thrillers, Casting, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek
Matthew Vaughn is set to direct an adaptation of Mark Millar's comic
Kick-Ass -- and part of the cast he was
hinting at back in June has been announced:
Christopher Mintz-Plasse (McLovin, as predicted in the comments two months ago) and
Chloe Moretz are joining the production.
Kick-Ass is the ultra-violent (surprise, it's
Millar) story of a high school dork, Dave Lizewski, who reinvents himself as a superhero named Kick-Ass. Unfortunately, he's pretty bad at it, until he's forced to face real bad guys, who pack real weapons.
Surprisingly, Mintz-Plasse will not be playing the lead -- he's playing the Red Mist, the angry teenage spawn of a mob family, who tries to uncover the Kick-Ass' real life identity. Moretz will be playing a vicious, foul-mouthed 11-year-old who chops down criminals with a katana. (In other words, she's playing my future daughter. What can I say, I'm going to raise her right.) The lead has yet to be cast, and Vaughn is courting several big names to play parents and mobsters.
Continue reading From McLovin to McBadass
Posted Aug 15th 2008 11:03AM by Eric D. Snider
Filed under: Comedy, Casting, Fandom
First the good news: Steve Carell and Tina Fey, who I consider two of the funniest people currently on television, are going to star in a film together. It's called
Date Night, and it's about a married couple whose attempt at keeping the romance alive leads to an evening of hilarity and merriment and shenanigans and whatnot.
Now the bad news: It's going to be directed by
Shawn Levy, whose previous films --
Big Fat Liar,
Just Married,
Cheaper by the Dozen,
The Pink Panther, and
Night at the Museum -- do not inspire a great deal of confidence. I'm seeing a lot of implausible slapstick and embarrassing pratfalls. I'd like to think Carell and Fey are smart enough to avoid something that will humiliate them -- but I used to think that about Steve Martin, too, and look where we are now.
According to
Variety,
Date Night came from an idea by Levy and was written by
Josh Klausner, who did some writing on
Shrek the Third and has worked as a second-unit director on several Farrelly Brothers films. (He also wrote and directed the 1999 thriller
The 4th Floor.) Levy is making the
Night at the Museum sequel right now, but
Date Night will come immediately after that, most likely next summer, when Carell and Fey are both on hiatus from their NBC sitcoms.
Both performers are quick-witted, smart, and adept at improvising. I think their sensibilities mesh well, and I'd love to see them in a film that matched their style. (Ooh, what if Michael Scott visited NBC Studios on one of his New York trips, and ran into Liz Lemon? Would that be cheesy, like when Arnold from
Diff'rent Strokes visited Ricky on
Silver Spoons? It would be, wouldn't it? Damn.) What do you think: Will
Date Night be a good fit? Or is it too soon to tell and we're all just talking out of our butts right now?
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