Jon Hamm Tagged Articles at Cinematical

If it wasn't for Andrew Stanton at the helm of John Carter of Mars, I think the interest might completely bottom out with its casting. ComingSoon had the scoop via Twitter that Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins were set to star, and the rumor became reality in The Hollywood Reporter.

Kitsch will be playing the titular Carter, a Civil War veteran who is transported (via astral projection, leaving his lifeless body behind) to Mars. There he meets the lovely Martian princess Dejah Thoris, wins her hand, rediscovers his own humanity, and rescues Mars. The film is tipped to begin filming in 2010, and they've been scouting Utah for Martian locations.

When Stanton discussed the project earlier this year, he mentioned they wanted an unknown despite the fact Hugh Jackman was tipped as a fan favorite. How odd then that they've managed to recast 2/4 of Jackman's X-Men Origins: Wolverine. THR notes that Jon Hamm and Josh Duhamel also tested for the part, and while I've got nothing against Kitsch (I'm not going to hold Gambit against him), I really wish they had chosen Hamm. An ex-Confederate needs a bit of age and weariness to him instead of being a fresh faced up and comer ... but then again, a lot of Civil War soldiers were ridiculously young when they enlisted, so perhaps Kitsch can play it as disillusioned and old-before-his-time. One can hope ...

Remember when it was common wisdom that TV stars couldn't cross over and become movie stars? The boundaries between TV and movies have been shattered, with actors freely crossing over between the two mediums. Over the next three weekends, we'll see a host of actors who made their mark in television stepping up to starring roles on the big screen. Tomorrow, fans can support Miley Cirus in Hannah Montana: The Movie, next week Zac Efron will pretend to be 17 Again, and later in the month, the heroic Ali Larter and the wired Idris Elba will tangle in Obsessed.

With that in mind, here are seven TV stars who should be in more movies. Not all of them currently play lead roles, but they all have the capability of dazzling audiences worldwide. For this edition, we're focusing on the gentlemen of the dramatic arts.

1. Jon Hamm

As Don Draper in the superb, eloquent Mad Men, Hamm has been crafty, elegant, and far too sexy when he's puffing on a cancer stick. He also has that rare gift of allowing viewers to peer through his eyes into his soul, which is a scary thing when you consider what Draper has done on the show. Hamm amply demonstrated his comedic ability on the episode of Saturday Night Live that he hosted last year, and again on a recent run of 30 Rock as a gorgeous, clumsy doctor living in a "bubble." He had nothing much to do in the disastrous remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, so he's ripe for some good movies. Drama, comedy, romance ... is there anything he can't do?

Let's just get the important part out first -- Variety reports that Jon Hamm, the man who looks like a cartoon pilot, has joined the cast of Howl. Commence girly shrieking, gaze at the photo to your left, sink into your chair with a grin on your face. It's cool. I did it too.

All right, now that's over with. Howl is already generating a lot of buzz, all of which should keep it from disappearing into indie obscurity. Not only does it center on a notorious moment of literary history, but its collected a heck of an ensemble cast -- James Franco (who is playing Allen Ginsberg), Paul Rudd, Mary-Louise Parker, David Strathairn, Jeff Daniels, Bob Balaban, Treat Williams and Alessandro Nivola are all on board. (Check out Peter Martin's piece to see who plays whom.)

Hamm has landed a very meaty part in the Ginsberg story -- he'll play the famous defense attorney Jake Ehrlich. Ehrlich was actually the attorney for Lawrence Ferlinghetti who had published Howl stateside as the owner of City Lights Bookstore. He faced a $500 fine and a 6 month sentence for daring to publishing Ginsberg's poem, and gained the services of Ehrlich thanks to the ACLU. Ehrlich took the case pro-bono, and later wrote an account of the trial titled Howl of the Censor, and was the inspiration for the television series "Perry Mason."

All joking and gushing aside, it's wonderful to see Hamm get to use his acting chops outside of Mad Men and Keanu Reeves. Now if some studio executive would watch that Lex Luthor video and make the obvious DC choice ...

Confession: Originally this post was going to be on the Lex Luthor Bailout video that's going around online starring Mad Men's Jon Hamm in a really bad (and visible) bald cap. Yeah, it's cute, it's funny and it's got a lot of Superman references -- but then this puppy came along and cracked me the hell up. So if you want to watch the Lex Luthor video too, you can do so after the jump. We're good like that -- we hook it up.

That said, I know this Andy Richter video is probably better suited for a television blog (like maybe TV Squad), but since it's not really a commercial, I guess we can kinda sorta count it as a short that pokes fun at all those lame car commercials you barely pay any attention to, but can't stand nonetheless. This doesn't really need a whole lotta setup, except to say that Andy Richter is awesome and this is priceless. Check it out below ...

We've posted an episode of Between Two Ferns before, back when Zach Galifianakis interviewed (and subsequently molested) poor Michael Cera. Now, though, in Episode 3 of this hysterical little bit, Zach sits down with Jon Hamm, from AMC's Mad Men and the new flick The Day the Earth Stood Still. While Hamm has made a huge name for himself lately, Galifianakis is slowly emerging as well with six films in different stages of production, including the Youth in Revolt adaptation and the Todd Phillips comedy The Hangover. I'm still waiting to catch his indie Visioneers (which we reviewed here), and these little bits he does for Funny or Die just crack me up.

Also on Funny or Die today is a little advertisement for Will Ferrell's new George Bush show, A Final Night with George W. Bush, which hits NYC in January. Watch that here, and watch the Zach interview below. Warning: This interview contains mild foul language and may be inappropriate for young, normal children.

This may sound silly, but there's no way that The Day The Earth Stood Still would exist today in any sort of proverbial vacuum. To get the most obvious reason out of the way, we wouldn't have the 1951 original to lift from, in which an extraterrestrial visitor advises Earthlings to knock off their paranoid Cold War aggression, or else. Secondly, this incarnation is so transparently indebted to the likes of Twentieth Century Fox's other PG-13 sci-fi actioners, Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow, that it's hard to imagine the same studio putting out this film first. Better yet, try seeing this particular re-imagining come about without the success of Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds bolstering the profile of other '50s sci-fi efforts (new variations on Forbidden Planet and When Worlds Collide loom still on the horizon).

No, I'm afraid that it was fated to be that the Earth would stand still once more, albeit in Manhattan instead of Washington D.C., because that's how Roland Emmerich would've done it, and with a robotic threat adjusted from the height of Yao Ming to something several stories taller. Who needs flying saucers when giant orbs will do? And why bother with a pesky still-relevant message against the tolls of war when environmental concerns are all the rage? If anything, TDTESS '08 shares most characteristics with the aforementioned metallic menace: it's sleek, loud and incapable of expressing emotion beyond some big booms.

You better start getting used to a new Smith family member showing up in huge, big-budgeted flicks. The Hollywood Reporter tells us that Jaden Smith (who plays Will Smith's son in real life) has signed on to co-star in the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still for 20th Century Fox. And yes, he'll be doing so without Pops in the scenes with him, as we saw last year when both Smith family members starred opposite one another in The Pursuit of Happyness. This time, Jaden Smith will play the 8-year-old stepson of scientist Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly). HR confirms that Kathy Bates and Jon Hamm will also star off a script written by David Scarpa, while Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose) directs.

The Day the Earth Stood Still is a remake of the 1951 flick carrying the same name, and it revolves around an alien who arrives on Earth with a giant robot to learn about the planet and spread a message. In a part that suits him more than perfectly, Keanu Reeves will be playing the alien (who goes by the name of Klaatu), while Connelly will play the woman who first comes into contact with the extraterrestrial. As HR points out, "Smith's Jacob and stepmother Helen get caught up in Klaatu's mission, coming to understand the ramifications of his being a self-described "friend to the Earth." Fox will shovel this one out on December 12, making it this year's big flick to see while struggling to afford Christmas presents. Anyone else think Keanu Reeves is actually an alien in real life? Dude is so ... odd. Perfect role for him, and I'm looking forward to this one.

The Hollywood Reporter announced that Jon Hamm, star of *HBO's Mad Men, has signed for a role in the update of the sci-fi classic. Hamm plays Don Draper on the series about the heyday of the advertising business. Hamm will join Keanu Reeves as the alien Klaatu, and Jennifer Connolly will play a research scientist. According to THR, Hamm will play "Dr. Granier, a NASA official who recruits Helen (Connelly) for the scientific team investigating an alien's arrival on Earth". For those of you out there who aren't familiar with the 1951 classic, it centers on an alien and his giant robot friend who land on earth to chastise man about their violent ways. They bring a simple message to earthlings, "Live in peace or be destroyed". Of course, we don't listen and it all goes downhill from there. Variety had reported that the film was going to get a little modernizing in both the story and the FX department, saying, "The 1951 film's premise, a response to the rise of the Cold War after WWII, is being updated, and the film will use advances in visual effects."

News of the remake first surfaced back in February, and the jury is still out on whether Keanu Reeves is the right choice as the harbinger of earthly doom. Scott had brought us the news back in April that Scott Derrikson had been hired for the remake and that Last Castle scribe David Scarpa is in charge of the script. The production is expected to be an expensive affair and locations have already been scouted in Vancouver for the lengthy shoot. Hamm is currently filming Boy in The Box with Josh Lucas while Mad Men is on break. The Day the Earth Stood Still is set for release on December 12th, 2008.

*Correction: Mad Men airs on AMC.

Actress Rhona Mitra is definitely no stranger to the ways of the law. She spent a good deal of time on The Practice, and then jumped ship for the ultra-wacky law show Boston Legal. Since then, well, she's not only got nipped and tucked, but she's taken some time for Skinwalkers, the flop that is The Number 23, and Shooter. Now The Hollywood Reporter has posted that she's going to co-star in a new indie thriller called The Boy in the Box -- written by actor Glenn Taranto and helmed by Anders Anderson.

No, this is not a retro celebrity biopic about Corey Hart. Rather, it's about a "small-town police chief (Jon Hamm, We Were Soldiers ) determined to discover the truth behind the mummified remains of a boy who was murdered a half-century earlier." Mummification -- that's not something that pops up in a thriller every day. Or in life for that matter. Anyway, Mitra will play "the police chief's wife, who is trying to move on after the disappearance of their own son eight years earlier." No wonder he's obsessed.

But there's even more cast on this sucker. The film is re-teaming Mitra with Sweet Home Alabama co-star Josh Lucas, who will play the slain child's dad. I imagine that means flashbacks -- since Lucas sure as hell isn't old enough to have a son who has been dead for 50 years. Wrapping things up, there's Dawson Leary / James Van Der Beek, Marcus Thomas (You Kill Me), the young tyke Jimmy Bennett (Evan Almighty) -- who I imagine will play the slain kid, and Jessica Chastain (Law and Order). I'll just go out on a limb and say Dawson did it! He's got a good creepy look to him when he wants to. As for you Buffy and Grey's fans out there, Box also has the vengeance demon/overachieving doctor Kali Rocha.

It'll be a little while before this film gets up and running. Having tackled the skinwalkers, Mitra is about to head for New Zealand and face lycans in Underworld: Rise of the Lycans.