What is Casting Couch? It’s feeling a little left out this week since casting agents seem to be focused on getting their clients pilots for the next TV season, but it’s got a couple pieces of big movie casting news anyway.
Chances are, as much as Tom Hardy’s face shows up in these casting updates, you assumed that he already had enough jobs to last him for the next decade or so. Turns out this isn’t the case. Whether or not Hardy actually gets around to starring in all of the projects he has in development will remain to be seen, but for now he has another gig to add to the pile. Deadline is reporting that he’s developing a new film with first time feature director Greg Williams called Samarkand. Much like the short film that Williams and Hardy collaborated on, Sergeant Slaughter, My Big Brother, this one will be dealing with the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder, a mental disorder that often plagues post-war combat soldiers. Williams co-wrote the script with his brother Olly, who reportedly has some real-life experience dealing with the issue. It will see Hardy portraying an SAS soldier returning from a tour in the Middle East and having trouble reintegrating with society. This is good news, because Hardy is even dreamier when he gets to keep his English accent.
When you think about a reboot for the Godzilla franchise, generally you just hope that it’s going to have some cool creature effects, it’s not going to get too cartoony, and that the human actors will mostly stay out of the way of all the giant lizard destruction, because probably they’re going to be horrible. Godzilla director Gareth Edwards seems to be committed to the idea of exceeding all expectations though, because not only have there been reports that he’s probably already got names like Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, and Bryan Cranston verbally committed to the film, but now there are reports coming out of Variety [via ComingSoon] that he’s also negotiating with living legend of contemporary French cinema, Juliette Binoche, to also come on board. I know that Godzilla is a cold-blooded lizard and not a warm-blooded ape like King Kong, but do you think it’s possible that the beauty of Binoche could be enough to soothe this savage beast? If anyone could pull it off, it’s definitely her.