Casting Bits: Chris Pine In ‘Mud;’ Matt Dillon In ‘Inferno;’ Joel Edgerton And Luke Evans Shortlisted For ‘The Great Gatsby’
One of the better-received films at this year’s Sundance wasTake Shelter, starring Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain. The film is playing to good reviews at Cannes now as well, and the writer/director,Jeff Nichols, is prepping his second film.Mud, as the picture is called, hasChris Pinein talks to star as Mud, a fugitive that is assisted in his escape from an island in the Mississippi river by two 14-year old boys.
TheLA Timeshas the news, and says, “the ambiguity of the story lies with Mud, who is both an unsavory and a redemptive character and who teaches the boys as much as he learns from them,” making the obvious and obligatory Huck Finn reference immediately afterward.Stand By Meis also name-dropped. The reviews forTake Shelterare all I need to be interested in what Jeff Nichols does next, and picking Chris Pine for a definitively non-blockbuster sort of role sounds like a good move.
After the break, Matt Dillon may beat up a pretend Linda Lovelace, and a shortlist emerges for theGreat Gatsbyrole that Ben Affleck had to give up.
For reasons no one really understands, along with all the competing fairy tale movies, there are two biopics brewing of porn star and feminist rallying-point personalityLinda Lovelace. The one that matters here isInferno, which is about to shoot in New Orleans under the direction ofMatthew Wilder. This is the film to which Lindsay Lohan was originally attached to play Lovelace, and which now hasMalin Akermanset to play the main role instead. AndMatt Dillonis now in talks to play her husband and accused pimp and abuser Chuck Traynor.
(The other film isLovelace, fromHowldirectors Jeffrey Friedman and Robert Epstein. That one doesn’t have a Linda Lovelace set yet, with Kate Hudson a rumored contender, but James Franco has been said to be ready to play Traynor.) [Screen]
Finally,Baz Luhrman’sThe Great Gatsby(in 3D!) is still casting up, and the production needs an appropriately Long Island-moneyed-type guy to play Tom Buchanan, the character who is married to Daisy (Carey Mulligan) and is having an affair with Myrtle (Isla Fisher). Ben Affleck, whose Boston jaw would have been very easy to make up as a lazy/rich East Egg-er, was in talks for the role but had to drop out in order to make his own new film,Argo.
