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September 28, 2004
Twitch's Take on These Watchmen Casting Rumors
Well, I was going to leave this one alone but it's picked up so much steam on so many film sites that I figure I ought to throw my two cents in.
In a recent interview Shaun of the Dead's Simon Pegg let it be known that he's read the Watchmen script and would love to play Rorschach, which has people hyped up all over the place. As far as I can see this is a simple case of the producer of one of the most anticipated comic adaptations ever passing along the script to a comic obsessed actor friend as a favor and said friend saying - as ANY actor would - that he'd like the plum role for himself. I really wouldn't read any more into this. Don't get me wrong, I've met Simon and I like him a lot. I'm a big, big fan of his work and I think he's enormously talented. But he's not going to get the part. Here's why. Beyond any other considerations Rorschach is a violent sociopath who likes to beat people down with his hands and is very good at doing so. He's also masked a healthy majority of the time. That means that whoever plays him absolutely must be able to carry a sense of physical menace about himself based purely on body type and Simon's just not that large.
Where do I see the casting going? It's all speculation, but read on for my picks ...
As I see it there are two ways to go with this.
Option Number One:
Stick close to the books and cast old. Well, old for a superhero film. In this scenario I quite like CHUD's suggestion of David Caruso as Rorschach, though he'd have to lose his sad-eyes routine. After that you bank on Robert DeNiro being able to break his recent string of bad performances in bad films and look to him for The Comedian. Failing DeNiro you go after Harvey Keitel, or possibly Christopher Walken though you'd have to rein him in a good bit. Beyond that this casting scenario gets hazy. If Harrison Ford hadn't gone and turned to wood I'd suggest him as the Night Owl. Redford and Newman both have the right screen presence for Ozymandias, but both are too old.
Option Number Two:
This is the one I'd go with. First, you take Jude Law up on his stated desire to be Ozymandias. Second, you get Ed Norton for Rorschach. Tim Robbins for the Night Owl. Gary Oldman and Willem Dafoe would both be good choices for The Comedian. Jon is going to be so heavily processed both visually and vocally that any number of people can do it, and I think there are a good number of people who could do Laurie as well. This option doesn't take your cast so young that you'd do significant damage to the book and it gives you a cast of strong, believable actors that would bring some good Hollywood cred.
» Posted by Todd at September 28, 2004 12:34 PM
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caruso is a good tv actor : terrible in films... ed norton can't act PERIOD... terrible "actor". personally, i think the choices are far too obviously big-draw names, and this is the sort of film with a large cast and big-budget that doesnt want it eaten-up unnecessarily, and diverting attention from what should be a narrative and not name-driven production...
they need some vision, some original unusual casting choices - they may be lesser-known but this should be about the film, the scenery, the story and not the cast.
thats just my opinion. anyone else?...
» Posted by logboy at September 28, 2004 01:11 PM
Ed Norton can't act!?! Are you mad? With the exception of The Italian Job I've loved him in everything he's done. But yeah, they wouldn't be able to afford all these names unless some of them did it for union scale ... you want one or two for box office clout but it'll probably be smaller names for the rest of them.
» Posted by Todd at September 28, 2004 02:23 PM
yes i stand by what i say : norton cant act. even with meaty stuff like "fight club" and "american history x" he's nothing special... not poor beyond repair, but not a great actor by any means...
» Posted by logboy at September 28, 2004 04:00 PM
Hey Bubba/Twitch/Todd! I don't post here very often because I just catch the feed off Bloglines, but I wanted to drop in to say what a marvelous job you're doing!
I remember being immediately excited by the new Twitchfilm blog when I read the post about Immortal (for which I recently posted a review and a ton of screenshots), and my enjoyment of this blog has not faded. Keep up the good work!
Jim and I of Listology have been doing some Twitch evangelism as requested, and I was wondering if you're getting the traffic here that you want & deserve, yet.
I especially love all the exclusive content you guys constantly producet. Thanks for everything!
» Posted by Luke at September 28, 2004 04:51 PM