Following news that Animal Kingdom‘s don-mom Jacki Weaver, Nicole Kidman, Alice in Wonderland‘s Mia Wasikowska have all joined the film, here comes one more. Dermot Mulroney, long-time almost leading man/accomplished character actor, has joined Stoker, written by Ted Foulke (a.k.a. Wentworth Miller) and directed by Park Chan-wook (Oldboy). For those wondering, Colin Firth is no longer involved, as he was once reported to be. Matthew Goode has since taken over the role Firth was set to play.
The film concerns a young woman named India (Wasikowska) who loses her father – the part Mulroney will play – and then must face her creepy uncle (Goode). Something wicked begins to come their way. Kidman will play the girl’s mother.
The plot of this film sounds curiously similar to Alfred Hitchcock’s classic Shadow of a Doubt (also Hitch’s favorite movie of his own), which only increases interest in the project. Add to that Goode’s penchant for playing wonderfully, quietly maniacal meshing with Chan-wook’s perverse style and you’ve got something that equals heavy anticipation. [THR]
In other, more practical though no less magical, news, Morgan Freeman has joined Louis Letterier‘s Now You See Me, already starring 30 Minutes Or Less star Jesse Eisenberg, Melanie Laurent, Amanda Seyfried and Mark Ruffalo.
For those who started reading our site today and have not delved into the 2,721 other stories we’ve written about this film, it tells the story of “FBI agents tracking a group of illusionists and magicians who pull off bank heists during their performances and shower money on the audience.”
Freeman is in talks to play Thaddeus, an old ex-magician who’s made a late career of exposing other trickster’s tricks. I’m thinking Michael Caine’s Cutter in The Prestige. Ruffalo is set to play the lead F.B.I. agent, hot on the tails of Eisenberg and his tech wiz Seyfried. [Variety]
As much as I love these old pros like Caine and Freeman making cute appearances in studio fare, I’d love to see them headline a film less hokey than Harry Brown and a bit more challenging than 10 Items Or Less.
Which of these projects are you more excited for?