Posts Tagged ‘ Casting ’

I was recently asked on Formspring if I thought Cloak and Dagger would make a good movie – and the answer, of course, is hell yes I do.

Not only are Cloak and Dagger favorites of mine, but I think their origin and dynamic would make for a great film. First off, their origin is nice and simple – runaway teens kidnapped and experimented on. It gives the characters a natural villain (their kidnapper) and a mission statement that’s easy to relate to (protecting runaways). It also offers the opportunity to have other characters spawned through the same process – like Mr Negative.

Then there’s the dynamic of the characters – rich, privileged Tandy Bowen. She’s pretty but naive and with a good heart. Tyrone Johnson by contrast is poor but honest, but being accused of a crime he didn’t commit has hardened him – but he’s still drawn to protect Tandy when he meets her.

It’s a great set-up and would make a nice self-contained movie even without the trappings of SHIELD that seem to pervade every Marvel movie these days. Hell, have the kidnapper be a disgruntled Stark researcher fired for unethical behavior if you must have a tie-in to the main Marvel movies.

The key (besides a great script of course) is finding the right Ty and Tandy. Actors who don’t look too old but can actually, you know, act. Fortunately, we have Friday Night Lights.

Friday Night Lights is a show that you should all, without exception, be watching. Consistently one of the best written, acted and produced shows on TV, it’s finally getting some recognition from the Emmy board this year in the shape of nominations for leads Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton but it’s two of the younger actors who are perfect fits for Cloak and Dagger.

Aimee Teegarden has played the Taylor’s daughter Julie since the start of the show, and she’s simply a perfect fit for Tandy. Michael B Jordan is a new addition to the cast in season 4 as the troubled Vince Howard – but again, perfect fit.

So there you are – the perfect cast for the perfect stand-alone superhero movie.

Now, if you want a script I can do that too…

Oh yes I have.

It’s been revealed that Edi Gathegi has been cast as Darwin in the upcoming X-Men First Class movie.

Darwin, of course, was a member of the ‘lost’ team of X-Men revealed to have been put together by Xavier to rescue his original team in the continuity-busting X-Men: Deadly Genesis.

The villain of that piece?

Vulcan, Cyclops and Havok’s mysterious third brother, Vulcan. Kevin Bacon has been cast as an unnamed villain.

So…

Wait, that’s not what I meant to say.

What I meant to say was that the ‘lost’ X-Men team actually was assembled to fight Krakoa, the Living Island.

So my real pick is this:

Because who doesn’t want to see Kevin Bacon as a giant living plant island?

From the stage at SDCC2010 – the cast of the Avengers movie – (L-R) Robert Downey Jr (Tony Stark/Iron Man), Clark Gregg (Agent Coulson), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Chris Evans (Steve Rogers/Captain America), Samuel L Jackson (Nick Fury), Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye), Mark Ruffalo (Bruce Banner), Joss Whedon (Director), Kevin Feige (Marvel Studios).

Do I have my concerns about this? A few.

But right now?

I’m just pretty damn excited about it.

Via

Kevin Bacon has been cast in X-Men First Class, opposite James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Alice Eve, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Caleb Landry Jones and Lucas Til.

So far, what his actual role is hasn’t been confirmed but consensus seems to be that he’s the villain and the best bet seems to be that he’ll be pasty, bendy, Victorian geneticist turned lackey-of-Apocalypse Mr Sinister, who also happened to spend some time conducting experiments in Nazi concentration camps, so there would certainly be some friction between him and Magneto.

But who else could he be, if we’re plumbing the depths of villains that the young Charlie and Erik could face?

1 – Lucifer

Not to be confused with you-know-who (that’s the Devil, not Voldemort), Lucifer was an alien Quist an advance agent for his race. When the invasion of Earth was foiled by a young Professor X, he dropped a concrete block on him, breaking his back and landing him in a wheelchair. Vindictive bastard.

2 – Sebastian Shaw

Not to be confused with the second guy to play Darth Vader, Shaw was Black King of the Hellfire Club to Emma Frost’s White Queen back when they were more of a threat and less of a mutant brothel – his inclusion would make sense if Alice Eve’s Frost is going to be introduced via the Hellfire Club. In a corset. … …. Anyway, a mutant himself, Shaw absorbs and redirects kinetic energy, which means if you punch him in the face really hard, he can punch you back even harder.

3 – Amahl Farouk

Amahl Farouk was a Sidney Greenstreet-esque predatory psychic mutant that Xavier faced early in his career whilst traveling in Egypt who ran a gang of street urchin thieves (including a young Storm), much like Oliver Twist’s Fagan but presumably with less singing. When Xavier killed him, he lived on in the psychic plane as the Shadow King and he later took over Karma’s body and ate a lot.

Eventually, the Shadow King’s history was retconned so that he was a psychic monster from the dawn of time, and Farouk was merely a host for his essence. But forget that, I just want to see Kevin Bacon in a fez.

4 – Steven Lang

A bit boring, Lang was creator of the Sentinel program and obsessed with mutants. So kind of like X-Men 2‘s Brian Cox, but less Scottish. On the bright side, if Bacon was Lang, we might see actual Sentinels in an X-Men movie instead of just this.

5 – Apocalypse

Ol’ blue lips himself, Apocalypse is a 5,000 year old mutant who also augmented himself with alien technology, presumably because being immortal wasn’t enough fun for him. A bit of a bastard, his main problem is that he tends to posture a lot and his evil plots are almost always along the lines of vague ‘survival of the fittest’ kind of things. Also, he’s scared of babies. Specifically mutant glowy-eyed babies. True story.

6 – Moses Magnum

Just because.

Not exactly breaking news, but Jennifer Lawrence has been cast as Mystique in the upcoming X-Men First Class, alongside Kevin Bacon who’s going to be the subject of another post entirely.

For now, though: Jennifer Lawrence, before she gets all blue and scaly just like Rebecca Romijin…

Yes, alright then.

Marvel has released their first image from the upcoming Thor movie (well aside from this one)…

…and it all looks a bit..plasticky, somehow doesn’t it?

I have faith in Kenneth Branagh, but I’m thoroughly underwhelmed by this.

Also, as impressive as Anthony Hopkins looks, he’s no Brian Blessed.

Casting FAIL!

What, too soon?

More casting for X-Men First Class has been mostly confirmed following on from Alice Eve’s confirmation as Emma Frost.

About A Boy‘s Nicholas Hoult – who I wanted for the new Peter Parker a few months back – has been cast as a young (and presumably at this point not blue and hairy) Hank McCoy, aka Beast.

Caleb Landry Jones, an actor who’s basically only appeared in bit parts (including in the ever-excellent Friday Night Lights and critically acclaimed but fatally flawed No Country for Old Men) and that it’s damn near impossible to find a recent photo of, has been cast as Sean Cassidy – Banshee.

There’s been some scuttlebutt around Kick-Ass‘s Aaron Johnson being cast as Cyclops, but that has apparently been denied. Lucas Till, however, has allegedly been cast as Cyclops’ brother, Alex Summers – Havok.

No word on who’ll be playing Jean Grey yet.

Let’s run a picture of Alice Eve with James McAvoy – Charles Xavier – shall we?

It’s official – Andrew Garfield, an American-born, British-raised actor is the next Peter Parker, Spider-Man.

You may remember Garfield as the plucky young Frank from Tennessee in the two-part Daleks in Manhattan episode of the third season of new Doctor Who, where he showed a disturbing ability to mangle an American accent and look perpetually surprised.

Still, I’m sure it will all work out.

And I’m still rooting for Molly Quinn for Mary Jane.

…probably, at least according to several online sources.

Then again a few weeks ago word on the street (I live in a world where this kind of information is passed along by seedy informants lurking in alleys looking for their next fix) was that Rosamund Pike would be trying to fill Emma’s corset, although she’s now linked with Moira MacTaggert.

I have to say, though, that Ms Eve would seem to fill out that corset a little better…

And yes, there is an argument that this post was just a blatant excuse for pictures of Alice Eve in her scanties.

And I’m okay with that.

There are some reports that Rosamund Pike is up for the role of Emma Frost in the upcoming X-Men: First Class movie.

I’m even more confused by this than ever. I was under the impression that Fox were placing this in the same continuity as the previous X-Men films; after all, the sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine is apparently still alive (I’ve been wondering what they’ll call that – More Origins?) so that would make sense.

That said, James McAvoy being cast as Professor X suggests that the events of this movie will be taking place at least, say, twenty years prior to the events of X-Men Origins: Wolverine and let’s say thirty years before the first X-Men film (just spitballing dates) and it would seem to preclude any appearances by any of the previous X-Men cast except perhaps for Wolverine himself.

Here’s the thing, though; Emma Frost was already seen in the Wolverine movie, played by Australian Tahyna Tozzi and was, confusingly Silverfox’s sister. Frost ended up heading off with young Cyclops at the end of the film.

So…how does that reconcile with the older Pike playing Frost about twenty years previous to her appearance in Wolverine?

Easy:

I suppose the Emma Frost in Wolverine was never actually identified by name, so we can get away with it but still, this irks me – although I shouldn’t expect anything else from the way that Fox has screwed with characters in the X-Men movies.

Also, and this is just a pet peeve, Emma Frost is not fricking English – although I suppose we have Grant Morrison to thank for that. Sigh.

Last year, it was announced to very little surprise that Fox would be rebooting the Fantastic Four – and this morning, AICN is running a story that the working title for the reboot is the Fantastic Four Reborn, presumably because that worked so well for the Superman franchise. The first two movies did decent box office but didn’t set the world on fire, were critically panned and generally dismissed by comic readers.

So of course I liked them.

They weren’t perfect by any means, but they were fun and frothy, weren’t overburdened by angst and set up the family dynamic pretty well. They did screw up Doom royally in the first one, but managed to slightly redeem the character in the second, so there is that. I also don’t mind the Galactus-as-cloud thing, either. After all, as much as I love the big guy, he’s going to look a bit stupid on screen.

In any case, I think that Fox, like Sony and Spider-Man, lose the rights to the FF (and the X-Men for that matter) if they don’t have a film in development for a period of time. Even if the rights did revert to Marvel, it seems likely that a new cast would take up the mantle – especially now that former Johnny Storm Chris Evans is playing Captain America.

So who could be the new Fantastic Four?

If Fox want to make it marketable, I think they’d have Reed and Ben in their early thirties, with Sue in her mid twenties and Johnny around twenty. I also think that they may want to think outside the box a little in casting – so who could they cast? Now bearing in mind that people can play a couple of years around their actual age….

Reed Richards – Reed’s smart, but he’s also supposed to be good looking. I mean, he snagged Sue Storm before he was all stretchy in the unmentionables and recent creative teams on the comic have gone out of their way to emphasize that he’s quite the catch. So…how about Jake Gyllenhaal?

Sue Storm – Beautiful. Poised. Smart. Always a few years younger that Reed, I’m okay (very okay) with Glee‘s Dianna Agron.

Johnny Storm – Chris Evans was note perfect for the role, but if we’re going younger it wouldn’t hurt to have someone who’s a bit of a teen heartthrob. Personally I’d like to have someone like Anton Yelchin in the role, but I think a more marketable bet might be somebody along the lines of…shoot me now…Zac Efron. Provided he got a haircut, some more acting lessons and did something about that permatan thing he has going on.

Ben Grimm - Michael Chiklis was also perfect for this role, perfect. Even so, I think that having the Thing be a man-in-suit is a bad choice, especially with the technology available these days. This is one role that I figure there’s some leeway on the age thing – we won’t see too much of Ben before he gets Thing-ified, so casting someone older with a bit of hair dye and smoothing a couple of wrinkles will work fine for me (and hey, he’s only 37). This guy’s got the physique going for the motion capture, an already gravelly voice, eyes that he can act with, and that apparently women find appealing, and, let’s face it, is the best thing by far about Grey’s Anatomy. Sure, he was already the Multiple Man, but nobody remembers that – Eric Dane.

As for Doom – someone European would be a start. Someone used to playing it dark. So how about True Blood’s Stephen Moyer?

Who would you rather see?

…maybe.

Slash/Film (and lots of other places) are reporting that Neal McDonough is in negotiations to play Dum Dum Dugan in the Captain America movie.

Dugan was second in command to Sgt Fury in the Howling Commandos in WWII, and as I’m pretty sure I read an interview with Samuel L. Jackson saying he wasn’t in Cap, I wonder if he’ll be running the troop this time out. Then again, Jackson seems to get confused as to who’s playing who in the Marvel movies so maybe I shouldn’t put too much faith in that.

Off topic, I also wonder how Dugan manages to be running around in the current MU, too – Fury had the Infinity Formula administered to him by Berthold Stermberg, but I’m pretty sure Dugan didn’t.

Maybe I shouldn’t think about it too much.

I know a lot of people thought Ted Levine should get the part and I can see why (even if I do have a hard time shaking his Silence of the Lambs‘ Buffalo Bill tuck’n'dance maneuver out of my head every time I hear his voice) but I’m sure McDonough will do fine as Dugan provided he grows a Sam Elliot-esque ‘tache for the role.

After all, McDonough has something going for him that Levine doesn’t: not only has he been in a flick about wendigos of a sort (Ravenous, underrated but pretty damn good), but he also fought the Borg.

And the Borg won.

James McAvoy has been cast as Charles Xavier in the upcoming X-Men: First Class according to THR.

McAvoy’s a great actor but I’m not really sure about this piece of casting – as much as I like him, I think that he’s going to have a hard time stepping into Patrick Stewart’s shoes.

Still, could be worse…

Ain’t it Cool is reporting that The Hurt Locker‘s Jeremy Renner may be signing on to the Avengers movie as Hawkeye.

Not a bad bit of casting; this rumor surfaced months ago but was debunked. However, AICN seems to think that that rumor was regarding negotiations, while this rumor is about actually signing up.

Sadly, I suspect that Hawkeye is less likely to be wearing his traditional purple togs, and more likely to be wearing something along these lines instead:

In other casting news, last week Bleeding Cool ran a story about Nathan Fillion being a lock for Hank Pym – which would be nice, but if I want any Whedon alum playing the Avenger’s batshit crazy scientist I’d rather it be Alan Tudyk.

But then, it is Bleeding Cool…

Latino Review seems to have scored the first pic of Captain Kirk’s dad Chris Hemsworth as Thor in the upcoming movie – and he sure looks the part.

The armor on display here looks more than a little like the recent Coipiel-designed armor too. As Kenneth Branagh’s directing, I already have high hopes for this – but they just got kicked up a notch.

Over on Formspring, I was asked who I’d cast as the three main characters in the just-announced Danger Girl movie.

Well, with the caveats that (a) it’s been a while since I read the book, (b) I doubt it’ll get made at the end of the day, and (c) I realise that one of these actresses is close-to-A list, one is TV B list on a show I like but rarely watch, and one is TV C list on a show I don’t watch, which makes them an unlikely set, I present you with:

Abbey Chase – Legend of the Seeker‘s Tabrett Bethell

Sydney Savage – Emily Blunt

Natalia Kassle – Chuck’s Yvonne Starhovski

How’s that?

Deadline is reporting that Hayley Atwell has been cast as Peggy Carter, the love interest of Captain America.

Well, she’s pretty and she’s English so I guess that fits (although I actually thought Peggy was American).

The real question is will Atwell also play Sharon Carter, introduced as Peggy’s almost-identical younger sister (and now retconned into being her niece) when Cap thaws out in the current era in the Avengers movie?

Deadline is reporting that Joss Whedon is in final negotiations to direct Marvel’s The Avengers movie.

Given that Cap (Chris Evans), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr), Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) are already cast, and it seems likely that Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Bruce Banner (Ed Norton) may turn up in some capacity – not to mention the possibility of the Abomination (Tim Roth) and General Ross (William Hurt) putting in an appearance, can we just go ahead and cast some of Whedon’s regular gang as the other Avengers?

I mean, it should keep costs down a bit…

Like…Alan Tudyk?

Summer Glau?

Enver Gjokaj?

Please?

Updated with another suggestion that I particularly liked…Dichen Lachman.

You know if there’s a way to get Fran Kranz in there…

Well. I guess that sorts out the whole ‘pity we didn’t get a front shot instead of her ass’ thing from yesterday…

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