Michael Vartan Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I've always been a sucker for killer croc movies. But, as Scott Weinberg so eloquently wrote in the recent past: "There's maybe one true 'classic' of the sub-genre (that'd be Lewis Teague's and John Sayles' Alligator, of course), and the rest of 'em are pretty much floating crap." Scott was ranting about the limited theatrical release by The Weinstein Co. (actually, their "dumping ground" subsidiary Third Rail Releasing) for Greg McLean's Rogue, which was limited to ten US cities.

So Scott (and most of you reading this) probably didn't get to see Rogue in a theater, but I did -- even if I had to drive 45 minutes to the only multiplex playing the dang thing. Me and the five (!) other people at that Friday night screening enjoyed a good old-fashioned suspense tale that played very well on the big screen. In a review I wrote for another site, I described it as "a taut and thrilling ride ... brimming with well-earned tension." Radha Mitchell stars as a tour boat captain on a river in the remote Northern Territory of Australia. She and a group of tourists end up being stalked by a killer croc "with an exaggerated sense of territorial possessiveness."

Rogue is out today in an unrated version on DVD. Dread Central got an advance peek and agrees with me that it's a good flick. The DVD includes an audio commentary by McLean, a 46-minute "making of" directed by McLean, and a gallery of mini-docs on the effects, the music, and the setting. Let's declare today "Killer Croc Day"!

We've already got The Promotion, but just in case you were itching for more man-on-man office wars, a whole new battling duo is on the way. The Hollywood Reporter posts that Michael Vartan and David Cross are going to play "bitter tire store rivals" in a new comedy called Demoted, that American Pie 2 helmer J.B. Rogers will direct from actor and writer Dan Callahan's screenplay.

In a step down from his character's success on Big Shots, Vartan will play a guy named "Rodney McAdams, a hotshot Treadline Tires sales associate who delights in tormenting his less-than-cool colleague, Ken (Cross)." But wait -- before you think Cross is being relegated to another role where he just gets tormented and takes it, or has a fear of nudity, read on: "When their boss suddenly dies, Ken is promoted and assigns Rodney to a secretarial job as payback, giving the male chauvinist a taste of his own medicine." You just don't cross the Cross!

Spit out some of your favorite workplace flicks below ...

Since I never really was a fan of Alias when it was on TV, I only had a vague sense of who Michael Vartan was beyond some gossip stories surrounding his break-up with co-star Jennifer Garner and only the odd movie role. One of Vartan's last high profile roles was with Jennifer Lopez in the romantic comedy Monster in Law, as a Mama's boy caught between his fiancée and his dear old mom.

Vartan looks like he might by expanding his horizons with a new role in the horror film Worst Nightmares for director Frederick King Keller. Moviehole.net reported that Bridget Moynahan, Lance Henriksen and Greg Kinnear are also in talks to star in the film. The script was written by Shane Briant and follows a Pulitzer Prize winner who is tormented by a serial killer that murders his victims based on their worst nightmare. The killer also finds time to run a website called www.worstnightmares.com to recount his evil deeds, so I would imagine a viral site is a given for the marketing campaign. Remember when serial killers just used to stab and shoot people? Ever since Se7en, serial killer flicks seem to have gotten so complicated, what with all the ironic deaths and all. So far the cast is still up in the air, but Vartan has expressed interest in the role of the killer. Since he usually plays romantic leads in films, I'd be curious to see if he could pull it off.

UPDATE: Thanks to a little clarification from the man himself, Shane Briant, we now know that Briant's novel (which will be released in May 2009) has not been optioned and that the talk of Vartan's involvement was nothing more than a good old fashioned rumor.