casting Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It really seems like Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen's Green Hornet is cursed, doesn't it? We've all followed the ups and downs of the production and just when it seemed like we were out of the woods, now we're short one villain. Earlier reports had Nicolas Cage making an appearance as an unnamed villain in the action comedy, but according to The Hollywood Reporter's Heatvision blog, Cage has officially left the production. I can only assume that Cage left hornet to work on the recently announced Drive Angry and the Hungry Rabbit Jumps.

Not much was known about what Goldberg and Rogen had planned for their Hornet's baddie, and over the years The Green Hornet has fought everyone from bootleggers to the Axis of Evil and communists. But in some of the earlier incarnations of the Hornet, his major villains were Mr. X, a shadowy crime figure, and Oliver Perry, a sleazy P.I. who was constantly threatening to 'unmask' our hero. No one knew for sure who Cage was going to play, and frankly I think he could have pulled off either role, but it's not like he's the only actor who could. Luckily for Columbia, Gondry had yet to shoot any footage with Cage, so when they find his replacement, they can start from scratch.

That said, I thought it would be fun to engage in a little casting wish-fulfillment and I've got five actors who I think can pick up where Cage left off. Now, some of the actors might not be who you would expect to show up in a Seth Rogen movie, but hey, this is my fantasy casting pool, so why not aim for the top?

After the jump: my picks for a brand new bad guy...

Oliver Stone's sequel to his classic '80s tale of slick, money-hungry stockbrokers, Wall Street, is racking up quite the cast. Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps already has Shia LaBeouf, Susan Sarandon, Frank Langella, Michael Douglas, and arthouse It Girl Carey Mulligan (An Education) signed up for a 21st century take on greed on whether or not it's good (answer: probs not). But the big rumor all summer has been that Josh Brolin will take over the role of the villain after Javier Bardem turned down the role.

Well, as our buddies over at the esteemed website The Playlist point out, in this weekend's New York Times Oliver Stone casually confirms the rumors that Josh Brolin will indeed be playing the villain, and Charlie Sheen will be popping up in a cameo as his character from the original, Bud Fox.

Now that the real Wall Street and its counterparts around the world have felt the collective shudder of the past year's financial implosion, Stone is hoping to show some hope for redemption for Gekko.

"In his first run at Wall Street, Mr. Stone produced characters and a portrayal that lived longer than he ever expected and with unintended consequences. But he never would have made a second version if it didn't appear that the system, and high finance, had finally been brought to its knees.

'We wouldn't have done this movie in 2006,' he said. "'Things were too loose. I didn't want to glorify pigs.'"

Some more cast members have been revealed for Rod Lurie's "re-imagining" of Sam Peckinpah's controversial '70s thriller Straw Dogs, which is good because it just started filming in Shreveport, LA. Like, yesterday. James Woods (one of my favorite creeps) has joined the cast, as have Willa Holland and Dominic Purcell; however, there's no real info on who they will be playing, as the three leads have already been cast.

Kate Bosworth is taking on the complicated character of Amy Sumner, who was played by Susan George in the original; James Marsden is her husband, David, originally played by Dustin Hoffman, and Alexander Skarsgård is her ex-boyfriend Charlie, Susan's ex and the ringleader of the escalating violence against the couple.

In Lurie's version, the Sumners relocate to Amy's hometown in Mississippi instead of Cornwall, and David is a screenwriter from Los Angeles rather than a milquetoast mathematician. I'm very curious to see how Lurie plans to handle the ambiguities of the original, especially the rape scene that had many critics leveling charges of misogyny against Peckinpah.

Did this movie really need a "re-imagining?" Can we please think of a new term of directors and writers who take pre-existing characters and put them in almost the same circumstances but in different locations? How will the cast hold up to the original? And let's not forget the iconic poster from the original -- that will be hard to top.

Peter and Bobby Farrelly's long-suffering project The Three Stooges has added and subtracted two more names to its cast, according to Boston.com, who caught up with Peter at a show at Fenway Park. Paul Giamatti, who can be seen on a limited number of arthouse screens in the wonderful new movie Cold Souls, will be taking on the role of Larry, the curly-haired comedian of the trio. (Oscar-winner Sean Penn ducked out of both The Three Stooges and Cartel earlier this summer.) Beleagured Wolf Man Benecio Del Toro is still on board to play slap-happy Moe, but Curly remains a mystery. According to Peter, who was trying to watch Paul McCartney while the reporter sussed out this info, the rumors that Jim Carrey will be playing the big-mouthed baldie are incorrect.

So who is willing to take the significant amount of Stooge abuse in the trio? Personally, I nominate Shia LaBeouf. Because someone needs a few noogies after Transformers 2.

If you're dying to participate in your own Stooge-y slapfight, you can download the iStooges app to your iPhone and n'yuck to your heart's delight. See a video demo after the jump.

Hey, LOTR fans! Even though The Hobbit isn't due until 2011, the crew in New Zealand has already started digging some holes for the hobbitses. TheOneRing, your source for all things hairy-toed, has some very cool pictures of the rebuilding of Hobbiton. So far we're only seeing roads, foliage, and the aforementioned hobbit holes, but it's whetting the proverbial whistle for what will hopefully be more Hobbit news out of the San Diego Comic-Con, which starts later this week. Producer Peter Jackson will be there to talk up the deliciously apocalyptic District 9, but rumors abound that there will be Hobbit-y deets leaking out from those insanely packed halls.

So far Jackson's denied he will be announcing who will play Bilbo at SDCC. He told Empire, "We're starting to think about casting, but we're knee-deep in the script right now. And when we do go to actors, they're probably going to ask to see a script, so we're powering ahead with getting the first draft done." It's not like both he and Hobbit director Guillermo del Toro aren't already working on enough different projects to make my head spin, but a fanboy or girl can hope, right? Right now, the odds-on favorites are Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe, Hot Scot™ James McAvoy, and David "Ten Inch" Tennant from Dr. Who. In turn, there are rumors that a Dr. Who movie will be announced at Comic-Con.

Stay tuned to Cinematical for the latest from Comc-Con! The crew there will be Tweeting it up from the convention floor.

Hold up. No one told me about the adaptation of Jim Thompson's classic The Killer Inside Me. A true '50s noir, Thompson's book is a bite-your-nails tale about a Texas sheriff's deputy who is also the town murderer. He's calm and cool on the outside and a brutal killer on the inside. And yes, it's also a song by MC 900 FT Jesus.

I'm down with that, since the younger and less chinny Affleck proved his chops in Gone Baby Gone and The Assassination of Jesse Ford by the Coward Robert Ford, although IMDb pro also lists him as the director of "Untitled Joaquin Phoenix Documentary," so we've got him to thank for that sh*tshow. Bill Pullman and awesomely creepy Elias Koteas (Crash) also star.

On the other hand, the rest of the cast is a uneven, and this particular adaptation has quite the long back story. Kate Hudson plays Lou's good-girl girlfriend Amy Stanton, while Jessica Alba is Joyce Lakeland, a prostitute who digs Lou's ugly side. And then there's Simon Baker, star of TV's "The Mentalist" and films like Sex and Death 101 and The Devil Wears Prada, Something New, Land of the Dead, and The Ring Two, as the small-town lawyer out to get Lou.

You ever get the feeling that a film is going to have a rocky road in front of it, no matter what? This certainly seems to be the case with Ridley Scott's Nottingham. Call me an optimist, because I still have faith that Nottingham (or whatever it decides to call itself) has a shot at being one heck of a flick. Things first started to look up when it was rumored that Cate Blanchett would be taking over the role of Maid Marian, and today Variety has confirmed that the Aussie actress has officially signed on. Speaking as someone who puts Blanchett alongside Meryl Steep as one of the coolest chicks working today, I'm thrilled that Crowe is getting a co-star that can hold her own.

But that's not all, because Scott and company finally decided to open up, and new story details have been revealed. The original script was written by Kung Fu Panda's, Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris, but Brian Helgeland was later brought in for a rewrite. According to Variety, "Crowe plays Robin of Loxley in an original story that hews close to historical facts of the period. Abandoned as a child, he finds community with the common people of Nottingham. Robin's abandonment and trust issues hamper his ability to fall in love. He meets his match in Marian, a strong, independent woman." The film is now being pitched as Gladiator meets Robin Hood -- I guess Crowe and Scott figured the formula worked well enough the first time, so why not capitalize on some of that 'Maximus magic'?

So now that we have a brand new Maid Marian and a look at what is in store for Crowe's man of the people, who's with me when I say that it's about time we give Scott's re-boot a fair shake?

The last time news about Fox's live-action version of the classic Anime Cowboy Bebop popped up, it seemed like most fans weren't exactly thrilled with the whole idea. So, I'm awfully curious to hear what they think of Keanu Reeves' latest comments over at the MTV Movie Blog. Reeves recently spoke with MTV about the project and he told them, "We've got the rights, we've got a writer" -- which could lend a bit of truth to the rumors that Fox was fast-tracking the project for a 2010 release.

Bebop premiered in Japan in 1998, and followed the adventures of a group of bounty hunters in the year 2071. The series was renowned for its complex stories and characters, and it's inventive use of classic rock and pop songs in the narrative. Reeves tells MTV that the outline for the film is "currently focusing on the origins of the fictional "Bebop" drug developed by the military, which provides its users with a brief surge of superhuman reflexes and awareness. "We're taking the Red Eye [story], the beginning part of the series, and then we'll deal with the end of the series. We're trying to figure out [the time frame]. We're looking at the story right now" (which, if you know anything about the fractured and complex stories of Bebop, is going to be no easy task).

Every hardcore war movie these days needs at least one rapper-turned-actor, and The Hollywood Reporter tells us Oliver Stone's Pinkville has chosen to go with Xzibit, who, contrary to what you may or may not think, was actually born with the name Alvin Nathaniel Joiner. Since the name Alvin is most closely associated with a certain signing chipmunk, I don't blame the guy for going with Xzibit. He'll join a cast that already includes Bruce Willis, Channing Tatum, Michael Pena and Woody Harrelson. Stone, whose last film was World Trade Center, returns to Vietnam for his fourth (and last, we think?) time with Pinkville, which will be based off a script written by Mikko Alanne, and revolve around the very real and tragic Mai Lai Massacre that found several hundred Vietnamese civilians -- mostly women, children and the elderly -- killed by U.S. soldiers.

For those who aren't huge rap fans, you might know Xzibit from his hit MTV show Pimp My Ride, in which he helps transform a teenager's sorry excuse for an automobile into a piece of art that couldn't be left alone on the street for more than three seconds before getting snatched. In addition to that, he's also nabbed roles in Gridiron Gang, Derailed and XXX: State of the Union. He's currently shooting the flick American Inquisition. In Pinkville, he'll play an American solider "who is convinced he carried out his orders in a moral way." Ah, so he'll be playing that guy. Pinkville is in pre-production now and is hoping for a release at some point in 2008.

The official casting call has gone out for Star Trek XI, directed by J.J. Abrams, and Coming Soon managed to grab all the details. If you just happen to be a Vulcan in your spare time, then there's a pretty good chance they'll cast you (and judging by how many Trek nuts are out there, I'm sure there's quite a few who actually believe they're Vulcan). Here's a taste of what they're looking for:

[MALES & FEMALES] - Ages 18-70, any ethnicity: to play Cadets: young, fresh-faced, Military types: marching experience preferred, thin, regal talent with BROWN or BLACK hair AND are OK with their eyebrows being shaved from the arch outward to portray a Vulcan-type eyebrow shape.

Talent with interesting and unique facial features such as: long necks, small heads, extremely large heads, wide-set eyes, bug eyes, close-set eyes, large forehead, short upper lip, pronounced cheekbones, over- or undersized ears and/or nose, facial deformities, ultra plain-looking people, ultra perfect-looking people, pure wholesome looks, twins, triplets, emaciated talent, regally poised and postured talent, or other visually unique characteristics.

Did you get all that? And how hysterical is it that they're seeking "ultra perfect-looking people?" Can I meet the person who walks in to the casting call solely because they feel like they look "ultra perfect?" And what's up with "emaciated talent?" That one just creeps me out -- and as I write that, someone at home runs to the mirror: "Emaciated talent? Sh*t, that's me!" Gotta love these casting calls and the way they define people. Check out the rest over at Coming Soon; the ultra perfect-looking Star Trek XI will hit theaters Christmas, 2008.