Bad News Bared: w/e - 9/30/05

bad news:  casting - Keith Moon 

Rather than pick an unknown British young male (they might all be busy auditioning for 007) to play the reckless drummer for The Who, producers for the untitled film are going with Mike Myers, a Canadian who is already ten years Moon's senior at his age of death. Myers, who has already screwed with one famous character (The Cat in the Hat) will be laughable, likely made up for better resemblance and doing an accent that we will only associate with Austin Powers. If they want to make this a joke, they should just have cast "MADtv" actor Michael McDonald, who looks more like Moon, and was also in the Austin Powers films. The Who's singer Roger Daltrey is producing, so I hope he knows what he's doing.   (Variety)

bad news:  remake - The Eye 

Renée Zellweger is in the casting news for a second day in a row. She is set to star in Paramount's remake of Oxide and Danny Pang's Asian horror film The Eye, about a girl with creepy visions after receiving new eyes from a murdered donor. I've seen the original and can not imagine anything worse from Hollywood, but I find it a little ridiculous that Hideo Nakata has been hired to direct. After starting the whole Asian horror hype with Ringu and its sequels and the remake sequel, he's now doing remakes of other Asian horror? The poor guy needs to go back and take some time off, think of something new, and maybe come back to us when he's ready. Especially with a script co-written by Sebastian Gutierrez (Gothika), this just isn't going to do wonders for his career.  (Variety) 

The clever biopics of authors never fail in their attempts to be creative, intertwining elements or characters of their work into the film. I'm not sure if Dreamland was the first to do it, probably not, but it is the one I think of every time. The Potter film is being directed by Chris Noonan (Babe) and will be live-action with some animation (talking animals!). Renée Zellweger is set to play the creator of Peter Rabbit and Ewan McGregor has been cast as her lover, Norman Warne, who died of leukemia a month after proposing to her. Thank goodness. I thought for once they'd make a happy movie out someone's life.   (Variety)

Article Author: Film Cynic

Visit Film Cynic's author page — Film Cynic's Blog