Caffeinated Clint
John Cusack headlines Roland Emmerich’s next
“One for you. One for them”.
That’s generally how it works in Hollywood when you’re an ambitious actor, not too fond of fluff, but level-headed enough to realize you’ve got to do a Jerry Bruckheimer vehicle every now and then if you want to do a small Oscar-calibre Indy next. It’s a bit of give-and-take. Most actors know how to play the game.
John Cusack’s been doing it for years. He’ll suck it in and play a part in a flashy popcorn pic like “Con-Air” or “1408”, but then that’ll make it easier for him to get something like “Grace is Gone”, the very small family drama he recently starred in and produced, up. He’s cool in everything he does, but he knows the merit is in the stuff we ‘don’t see’ (only the members of the Academy do).
Obviously Cusack’s got “some stuff” he wants to do, or get up – because he’s just signed to headline a new blockbuster from the producers of “Independence Day” and “Godzilla”.
“2012”, says Variety, kicks off with a global cataclysm, which brings an end to the world as we know it, and chronicles the heroic struggle of the survivors.
“Redbelt” star Chiwetel Ejiofor also is in talks to join the big-budget epic, whose title refers to the end days of human civilization as foretold by the ancient Mayan calendar.
Emmerich and Harald Kloser penned the screenplay, which Sony bought in February.
Shooting will begin in July in Los Angeles, barring a Screen Actors Guild strike.
Meantime, another actor who knows “how to play the game” (and ironically, featured in “Con-Air” opposite Cusack), Steve Buscemi, has snagged a role in “Youth in Revolt”, the new Michael Cera-starring pic about a kid who meets the girl of his dreams on a family vacation and destroys the trip trying to be with her.
Buscemi will play Cera’s father in the flick.
