ShaneWest Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Check out these bits of casting, and a few actor's wishes for this Monday:

• Mario Van Peebles is whipping up an action thriller called Kerosene Cowboys, and the cast is about to be set. The Hollywood Reporter posts that Cam Gigandet, Shane West, and Rachael Leigh Cook are in negotiations to star in the flick that follows "hard-living pilots of an elite Navy attack squadron." Gigandet will be a "hot-shot pilot," West will play the nemesis who used to be his best friend, and Cook will wrap things up as a journalist who dates Gigandet. At the very least, it looks like a welcome vacation from some of Cook's recent work (from The House of Yes to Blind Ambition ... my, how they fall).
• Vin Diesel is all about the returns lately. First came the latest Fast and Furious pic, and now more triple-X. Variety reports that both Diesel and director Rob Cohen have signed on for another XXX pic, this one titled: XXX: The Return of Xander Cage. While it's not the most unique title out there, at least it's showcasing the plus points -- the return of Mr. Vin.
• Meanwhile, Adam Arkin is taking on the world of Coen. Variety reports that the Life actor has grabbed a role in A Serious Man. There is no word on who he's playing.
• Having just recorded "Another Way to Die" for Quantum of Solace, MTV reports that Alicia Keys would like to be a Bond Girl. Methinks this is something that would work best as a Bond girl/song mixture -- the sexy, iconic Bond girl having the pipes to also belt out the theme song. But no matter what happens, she has this positive report about the film: "it's damn good."

After the jump: De Niro and Pacino ... as women?

When films turn personal, there are a myriad of ways they can turn out. One way I never thought of -- out of body experiences that need soul saving. Variety reports that Val Kilmer, Shane West, Cam Gigandet, Eric Balfour, and Arielle Kebbel have signed on for a film called Silver Cord. James Ordonez will direct the feature, which he wrote with Ken Gord, and relive some personal experiences.

As Variety describes it, the film "centers on Ordonez's brother who came back to life after being declared clinically dead on multiple occasions. The brother died in 2004." But the summary up on IMDb says a whole lot more, written by James himself: "The story of a young man who is separated from the love of his life. To find her he has an Out of Body Experience but the silver cord that connects his soul with his body breaks and he is believed to be dead. In a desperate race against time his friends have less than 24 hours to save his soul before his body is cremated."

It's not every day you get so-called true life stories about people leaving their body to find paramours and then losing their body and being declared dead. Since he'd been declared dead a number of times, I guess the dude had a penchant for out-of-body travel.

Sony Pictures has just launched Stage 6 Films, "a label that will acquire and produce films for theatrical and straight-to-DVD release." The Variety announcement reports that Stage 6 will focus mostly on the DVD market, and on films budgeted at $1 to $10 million dollars. They've got a lot of movies on the horizon, with some pretty big stars involved. Conspiracy is an action flick starring Val "Iceman" Kilmer, Gary "Lumbergh" Cole, and Jennifer "Hot" Esposito. Thomas Jane is acting in and directing Dark Country (hope it's not a punisher!). The Stone House is a horror film starring Shane West and JK "Schillinger" Simmons. The Lodger stars Alfred Molina, whom I always picture in his underwear singing "Sister Christian." And Felon brings us even more Kilmer thrills, with Stephen Dorff and Harold Perrineau in tow.

And you know when you're talking direct-to-DVD, you're talking about some really random sequels. Stage 6 has announced a prequel (a prequel?) to this year's pretty cool horror flick Vacancy. There will also be a second Starship Troopers sequel -- Starship Troopers: Marauder, with Casper "Van Dien" Van Dien, Boris Kodjoe, and Jolene Blalock. Wesley Snipes will star in a sequel to the absolutely terrible action movie The Art of War, which I will refer to as The Art of War 2: Seriously? And Center Stage 2 will capitalize on the public's love of melodramatic teen dance dramas. I must confess a special place in my heart for the original Stage, because it led to a memorable high school back seat rendezvous. Put that quote on your poster, Sony! "Stage 6 will also continue to leverage our vast library of studio films, as we have done with Daddy Day Camp and the I Know What You Did Last Summer franchise," threatens a Stage 6 executive.

Continuing the never ending but always depressing trend of trying to turn hot young things who can't act on TV into movie stars, that fatty Mischa Barton is set to star in Hexxx, a "supernatural thriller centering on college students in New Orleans." (Every time I see the woman on The O.C., I find it almost impossible to comprehend that she was that wildly talented, wonderfully natural little girl in Lawn Dogs. I mean, what the hell happened?) The movie, which was written by the nondescript team of John Raffo and Mark Gibson (notable because he been hired to write the inevitably hilarious Coach Snoop, which is exactly what it sounds like it is), will be directed by Marc Schoelermann, a German director who is making his feature film debut. Also rumored to be in the cast is another sullen TV star, ER's Shane West. So, overall, it's a team to be reckoned with - 2007 Oscars, here they come!

[via Dark Horizons]

Last month we passed alnong the news that the Germs biopic was going back into production. What We Do Is Secret stars Shane West as Darby Crash, and last we heard, the producers were scouting real-life punk kids to fill out the cast. Howard Paar, the film's music supervisor, told Reuters that look/soundalike bands have now been cast to fill in for Black Flag and The Screamers, and former Germs/Nirvana/Foo Fighters guitarist Pat Smear has been working with the actors to help them approximate the Germs' style and sound. According to Paar, West and company (including Bijou Phillips as Lorna Doom) "rehearsed like a band would." He goes on to quote Smear as saying, "I can get them to play as well as we did when we were bad."

I suppose one could make a sort of general argument against anything that attempts to replicate old-school punk for profit, but I think Sid and Nancy is all the evidence we need to blow such crankiness out of the water. The fact is, most biopics are either dull or blasphemous; punk rock never took it seriously enough for its dramatizers to really have to worry about either misstep.