Best start working on your frisbee skills: Casting for Joseph Kosinski’s Tron 2.0 or (TR2N) begins, with Olivia WIlde of House and Beau Garrett of Turistas joining the returning Jeff Bridges back in the original matrix. “Wilde will play a worker in the virtual world who tries to help fight Master Control Program, the villainous intelligence protocol that was the nemesis in the original film. Garrett will play a siren in the virtual world.” Hmm, ok. Can we get David Warner in here somewhere? I know Sark is dead and all, but it seems like Ed Dillinger, the big bad of the first film, might well’ve made a backup, and Warner always adds a touch of class to the proceedings.
Category: Casting
Why so Serious?
With Burn after Reading mere weeks away (Sept. 12, in fact), the brothers Coen cast their next flick, A Serious Man, with relative unknown Michael Stuhlbarg in the title role and Spin City‘s Richard Kind along for the ride as a deadbeat brother. As noted here, Serious involves “a Jewish college professor in the Midwest during the 1960s [who] seeks to solve his existential issues from men of God.” Sounds like serious business.
Bastard out of Tennessee.
“Much of the pic’s dialogue is in French or German, and subtitles will be used, though Pitt will speak English in his role as a Tennessee hillbilly who assembles a team of eight Jewish-American soldiers to take on the Nazis.” Brad Pitt officially signs up for QT’s forthcoming WWII epic, Inglorious Bastards. Also in negotiations to join the project at the moment: Nastassja Kinski, Simon Pegg, David Krumholtz, and B.J. Novak.
Hmm…I dunno. I haven’t read the script, which I heard was floating around, and probably won’t before I see the movie. I’d like to think that this’ll be a return to the form of Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown for Tarantino. But the Kill Bills and Death Proof were so loopy, bloated, and self-indulgent that I fear QT has entered George Lucas territory, meaning that he’s surrounded by sycophantic yes-men and has sadly disappeared up his own ass, never to emerge again. And casting his buddy, torture-porn director Eli Roth, first only increases my wariness that this’ll be yet another self-referential bric-a-brac homage to exploitation flicks of the past. Still, hope springs eternal.
This ain’t Aruba either.
Detectives Bunk and Freamon, y’all’s transfer has come in: The Wire‘s Wendell Pierce and Clarke Peters will rejoin David Simon for his new NOLA show, Treme. “Pierce will play Antoine Batiste, an accomplished jazz trombonist who is now scratching for gigs, trying to support a live-in girlfriend and a new baby, while still carrying a torch for a failed marriage…Peters will play Albert Lambreaux, a big chief of the White Feather Nation trying to bring the tribe’s members home.“
Depp the Disgruntled Milliner?
Wonka redux? Word is Johnny Depp will be suiting up as the Mad Hatter for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, in 3D. (Burton cast his Alice last week: Australian Mia Wasikowska, recently of In Treatment.) Alrighty then…but after Wonka, Dr. Thompson, and Captain Jack, hasn’t Depp already thoroughly crashed this tea party?
This Place is a Prison.
Rumors were floating around a few weeks ago, and an earlier attempt with Christopher Eccleston failed…but now it’s confirmed. The classic British sci-fi show The Prisoner will return as a six-episode miniseries for AMC and ITV, with Jim Caviezel as Number 6 (Patrick McGoohan) and Ian McKellen as Number 2 (Leo McKern, most memorably). “While the original show worked as a metaphor for the paranoia of the Cold War, AMC says the remake will reflect 21st-century stressors such as constant surveillance and the conflict between liberty and security.”
Words of W(isdom).
McAvoy of Bag End.
Will James McAvoy play Bilbo Baggins? That’s the current rumor. “[D]irector del Toro adds, ‘I can tell you it’s down to a few names that we all agree upon. For our first choice, completely magically we all have the same name.’”
An Unexpected Party.
“Like Guillermo says, apart from extreme circumstances, we would never recast a character who appeared in the LOTR trilogy. You can read The Hobbit and pretty much see which characters play a part. The unknown facter is Film Two, which we are still developing.” Over the weekend, Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro ventured online to discuss The Hobbit. Not much in the way of news made (other than the quote above), although it’s worth reading for Del Toro’s thoughts on Smaug, among other things. It does sound like they’re winging this second “filler” movie, tho’, which could be real trouble.
On the Road.
“What’s moving and shocking about McCarthy’s book is that it’s so believable.’ Mr. Hillcoat said. ‘So what we wanted is a kind of heightened realism, as opposed to the “Mad Max” thing, which is all about high concept and spectacle. We’re trying to avoid the clichés of apocalypse and make this more like a natural disaster.’” Also in movie news, the NYT checks in with the filming of John Hillcoat’s The Road, based on the book by Cormac McCarthy and starring Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee as father and son respectively, along with Guy Pearce, Robert Duvall, and Michael Kenneth (“Omar”) Williams. I mean, it kinda figures that Omar would’ve survived the Apocalypse.