By Mark Harris at
Le Studio/FilmMagic Le Studio/FilmMagic
With 1,183 members, the actors branch is the largest single voting bloc of the Academy — and also the most susceptible to sentimentality. I don’t mean on-screen tearjerking (although God knows they go for that); I mean that more than any other branch, actors like to root around for the narrative beneath the nomination — the weary veteran finally getting his moment, the shiny-eyed newcomer who emerged out of nowhere, the funny guy who surprised everyone by being serious, the pretty actress who let herself be ugly. This should make for a grotesque and unfair roster of nominations, and sometimes it does, but happily, there are narratives available for any number of great performances. To wit:
By Mark Lisanti at
Paul Drinkwater/NBC/Getty Images
Before we begin, it should be stipulated that awards shows are boring. They have always been boring, and they will continue to be boring until the Earth hurtles into the sun, which will almost certainly occur during the 18th hour of 10,464th Annual Academy Awards Psychocast, finally freeing us of the curious need to complain about why we aren't more entertained by famous people trading gold statues and listing their business obligations.
The fact that relatively non-famous person Charlie Day got to host SNL this weekend was surprising — even to Charlie Day. He kicked off his monologue with, “I know that Don Pardo just said it, but I think it’s important to confirm that I’m actually hosting Saturday Night Live. This is happening." In terms of pure comedy chops, Day — who has been an underrated manic force on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (and dare we say, one of the funniest people on TV) for seven seasons — was certainly qualified to host SNL. But the reason Day got the gig presumably had more to do with the fact he recently graduated to the big screen, with scene-stealing work in Going the Distance and Horrible Bosses. Still: Charlie’s not famous-famous, and SNL was probably only willing to accommodate a star of such low wattage because Day is (as we believe we’ve effectively communicated?) goddamn hilarious. So here’s the surprising part: Day’s episode was SNL’s highest-rated in over a month.
Where In the World Is Carmen Sandiego? has been optioned by Walden Media as a live-action adaptation for Jennifer Lopez to co-produce and possibly star in. In the new version, top detective Sandiego goes on the run as an alleged thief, and has to be tracked down by her former partner. This is a good time to point out that one fun thing to do, when people ask you what kind of music you like, is to just say, “Rockapella.” Grade: A- [Deadline]
Shia LaBeouf has joined an untitled indie project from new production house Lava Bear Films. Wait, ready for this? The movie revolves around a troubled girl who encounters a 20-foot-tall next-door neighbor, played by LaBeouf. Just that plot description has already entertained us more than Transformers, Transformers 2, and large swaths of Transformers 3. Grade: B+ [Showblitz]
Melissa McCarthy is having an excellent week: On Sunday, she won the Emmy for Best Comedy Actress, and yesterday, CBS picked up a sitcom she co-wrote with her husband, Ben Falcone. (It is, in her own words, “about a woman in her mid-40s who has a spectacular midlife crisis” and “what a midlife crisis means for a woman, which is very different from [what it means for] men.”) If this lucky streak continues, today Melissa McCarthy will probably enter and win a very lucrative raffle. Grade: A [Deadline]
Simon Cowell is working on a stage adaptation of The X Factor for London’s West End, and has reached out to British comedian Harry Hill and comedy music producer Steve Brown to drum up ideas for what such a monstrosity might look like. This is great news for British pop star Cheryl Cole, who now has one more iteration of X Factor from which she can be fired. Grade: D [Deadline]
Bradley Cooper has dropped out of the title role in Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s remake of The Crow due to scheduling conflicts with Paradise Lost — but fret not: both Channing Tatum and Mark Wahlberg have apparently surfaced as possible replacements. And if the competition for the role is decided via a shirtless dance contest in which the two channel their former selves (as a stripper and Marky Mark, respectively), we all win. Grade: B-[HR]
Melissa McCarthy will steal Jason Bateman’s identity in the comedy ID Theft. Apparently McCarthy’s role was originally written for a dude, but Bateman, who is also producing, pushed for McCarthy after seeing Bridesmaids. Good thinking, Jason. Grade: A [Deadline]
When news broke today that Tom Cruise had dropped out of the lead role in Guillermo Del Toro's Pacific Rim — a monster movie presumably starring creatures who peak-a-boo you to death — eyebrows were raised over the fact that his replacement looks absolutely nothing like Tom Cruise. The Wire’s Idris Elba got the call, instantly making the movie more interesting. But Elba is only the latest in a recent string of surprising recastings for the former top gun, who has been jumping on and off projects as if they were Oprah’s couch. In last year’s Salt, for example, the lead role (then named “Edwin” and no doubt possessing a killer smile and the ability to heal drug addiction with his mind) was Cruise’s before he bailed at the eleventh hour — only to be replaced by the not-at-all-Cruise-like Angelina Jolie.
It would seem Cruise’s departures provide a sort of psychological unburdening for Hollywood producers: free of the (diminutive, diminishing) charms of the one-time biggest star in the world, they are able to recast with creative abandon. With that in mind, we pored over Cruise’s slate of upcoming projects and prepared a list of potential outside-the-box replacements for when the star’s interest inevitably Cole Trickles away.
