They say only about 10 percent of working actors become movie stars, and the studio execs coming up with the major movies roles don’t have a creative bone among them. When you combine these two facts, you get my weekly Role Call. Here’s the skinny on who’s doing what–in all its good, bad and very ugly glory.
Ashton’s already a grandpa?
Although I don’t usually talk about TV stuff, this one was too good to pass up. Fox TV has made a pilot commitment to the tentatively titled 30 Year Old Grandpa, a half-hour laffer about a young man who marries an older woman and becomes the stepfather to kids nearly his age. Sound familiar to Ashton Kutcher’s real life? Well, of course it does. But Kutcher is only exec producing Grandpa–along with his producing partners Jason Goldberg and Karey Burke. He isn’t about to play the whole “art imitating life” thing. Plus, the show will share only some of the things in common with Kutcher‘s situation, not all of it. According to Burke, the idea for the project actually began as a much different concept. “It started out as an idea about a mother and daughter having kids at the same time,” she told Variety. “It then dawned on us that the guy’s point of view on this was the comedy hook.” Variety reports the pilot tells the story of a 30-year-old club owner who ends up marrying a successful fortysomething businesswoman. Not long after the wedding, the couple discovers they’re expecting a child, while the woman’s 22-year-old unmarried daughter announces she’s pregnant and plans to move back home to raise her baby. Meanwhile, the woman’s youngest daughter–who had been living with her dad–decides she wants to move in with her mom and stepdad. “It becomes a very modern, messy look at an extended American family,” Burke added. I can hear the canned laughter now.
Get ready for more Rocky
Sylvester Stallone is forging a movie comeback for the unlikely boxing champion, Rocky Balboa. Yes, you heard it right. Rocky VI–or as it also known by, Rocky Balboa–is on its way. Stallone, 59, will reprise his role as Rocky, the Philadelphia boxer who pumped his fists in the air and became the underdog we all wanted to root for. In the sixth installment, Rocky is lured out of a long retirement to fight a championship bout while dealing with personal tragedy outside the ring. “‘Rocky Balboa’ is about everybody who feels they want to participate in the race of life, rather than be a bystander. You’re never too old to climb a mountain, if that’s your desire,” Stallone said in a statement. MGM President Dan Taylor told Hollywood Reporter he was convinced that “a whole new generation of filmgoers (is) ready to be introduced” to Rocky Balboa and his life in and out of the ring. Hmmm, I see. While I’m sure this news might excite those fans of the original Rocky–which in 1976 proved to be a box office smash, raking in $117 million as well as winning Oscars, including Best Picture–I’m just wandering how painful it’s going to be watching a man in his late 50s, who has no business being in a boxing ring, get pummeled. Pretty excruciating, I think. Why doesn’t Stallone play Rocky as a boxing manager or the owner of a gym? He could help out another young spitfire, say, a girl for example. He could teach her all his old tricks and then get emotionally attached to her, in a fatherly way, only to see her break her neck and become a paraplegic. Oh wait, that’s Million Dollar Baby.
On the new Bond
Now that the news Daniel Craig will be the new James Bond is a few days old, I feel compelled to put in my own two cents about the casting: I’m sort of on the fence. On the one hand, I believe Craig has the acting chops to take Bond in a different direction. He proved he can be dashingly clever and alarmingly attractive in the British indie flick Layer Cake, as well as be brooding and introspective in the little-seen Sylvia. But–and this is in no way disrespectful to Pierce Brosnan, who did a fine job as 007–they’ve gone with an “serious actor” before as Bond, and it didn’t work. Remember Timothy Dalton? Yeah, few of us do. Also, Craig is blonde and fair–not exactly the image that comes to mind when thinking about the world’s most famous secret agent. Of all the other actors being mentioned for the role, only Clive Owen seemed to be the best choice to me–in looks and acting skills. But the actor is far too established in his own career to take on a franchise of this magnitude. You really do need someone whose career is just starting to take off. At least Craig’s got a sense of humor about it all. When asked by Reuters what he did the minute he found out he was the new Bond, he admitted he ran to the liquor store and bought vodka and vermouth, to make a martini…or two. So, for that, I’ll give Craig the benefit of the doubt.
Favreau’s on Mars
“I’m ready to step up to the PG-13 market!” director Jon Favreau told Entertainment Weekly. The Elf director will follow up next month’s kiddie flick Zathura with an adaptation of John Carter of Mars. EW reports the long gestating project (“75 years in development!” Favreau quipped) was previously slated for directors Robert Rodriguez and Kerry Conran (Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow) and is based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ sci-fi serial about a Civil War vet who’s mystically transported to the planet Barsoom. Ohhh, Burroughs’ stuff is always weird and wacky. “Hollywood has been trying to make this film since [an animated version] was a competing project with Snow White,” Favreau said. “It’s been difficult because you’re dealing with so many alien races and there’s only one human character in it; everything else has to be augmented by effects.” As for producer Harry Knowles, aka Ain’t It Cool News webmaster, Favreau says, “I don’t think that anyone is expecting any degree of journalistic objectivity. It is a passion project for him, and he knows everything about its history…” Harry Knowles? The guy whose little Web site used to be able to make or break a fledgling film with one unkind word? Wow, he’s certainly moved up in the world. Wonder how he’ll feel to be on the receiving end of a movie critic’s opinion [as I begin to maniacally laugh].
Hannigan goes on a Date
Alyson Hannigan, of TV’s Buffy the Vampire Fame and the American Pie series, is set to star in Date Movie, a Scary Movie-esque romantic comedy spoof. “I play the Julia Roberts/Reese Witherspoon Everywoman [who’s] searching for her one true love. But after she actually finds him, he disappears, so she has to go on Extreme Bachelor, where if you’re not picked, you’re shot at,” she told EW. Huh? “It’s very, very extreme! [In one scene], I wake up with this hideous–and I do mean hideous–zit that’s probably the size of my pinkie. Since it’s very important day, I pop it and it sends me through a wall…” Lovely. Are the Farrelly brothers attached to direct? Sounds right up their alley.
Craven goes Home
Horror vet Wes Craven and his Craven/Maddalena Films shingle have optioned Home, a thriller by screenwriter Adam Alleca. The story follows a man, fresh out of prison and under provisional house arrest in a cabin in the woods, who struggles with his own delusions. Why must it always be in the woods? It’s just been done so many times before. At least Craven is attached, even if it is as executive producer. According to the Reporter, Alleca, a recent graduate of Emerson College, is also developing a horror script called Beneath about a young woman and a drifter who team up to fight monsters they discover in a rural valley lake. This guy doesn’t have many original ideas, does he?
Until next week…
