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Thursday, November 24, 2022
Recasting 1996 (supporting): "The Birdcage"
Thursday, November 17, 2022
No "Big Little Lies" season 3?
Multiple sources are reporting that Big Little Lies cast member Zoë Kravitz was quoted in a GQ interview recently that the possibility of season 3 of the hit HBO series was "done." Other members of the cast have held out hope that they'd all be brought back together for another season, with Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, and Laura Dern all saying that they'd be up for it. But Kravitz cites last year's death of director Jean-Marc Vallée as the reason they won't be going forward. Vallée directed all the episodes of the first season and stayed on creatively in the second season under Andrea Arnold's direction.
This makes sense. And although I'm a bit surprised by how frank and final Kravitz's take is on the likelihood of another season, I've been sort of hoping they don't do another one. It's not even a certainty that Meryl would've been involved anyway. Considering we can't even get info about when her latest project, Extrapolations, will be released on Apple TV+, I guess we shouldn't be super surprised that this is just one more project that we can be confident will not in fact go forward.
Saturday, November 12, 2022
Recasting 1995 (supporting): "Rob Roy"
1995 is definitely remembered more for a different movie that took place in Scotland. While Rob Roy is a fine movie, it naturally gets overshadowed by Mel Gibson's epic, Braveheart. It reminds me quite a bit of my lead recasting choice for the same year. Copycat had a similar psychological thriller appeal to David Fincher's Seven, with the latter deservedly gobbling up more of the attention that year. Still, we're here for the role, not just for the movie, and the character of Mary MacGregor in Rob Roy makes for an interesting prospect when imagining Meryl in it.
Originated by the great Jessica Lange, Mary is wife to Robert MacGregor (Liam Neeson), a clan chief in the Scottish Highlands who takes out a loan to alleviate the poverty of his people. When the money is stolen by the garish aristocrat Archibald Cunningham (Tim Roth), MacGregor is forced to go into hiding to avoid punishment or death.
From the get-go, it's pretty easy to see why Meryl was not in this movie. Quick side note: according to IMDb, Lange replaced Miranda Richardson (an actor from whom I've thieved two roles already in this supporting recasting project). For one, Meryl wasn't really much for supporting roles in the 80s and 90s. And while I expect she would've jumped at the chance to prove her chops at a Scottish accent, the role is more risky than she tended to accept. I'm reminded of the Lange role in Blue Sky I chose for 1992 in the lead project. The character was sensual, overtly at times, and Meryl tends to not go there much. It's like the opposite of the kinds of movies we'd picture Isabelle Huppert doing, like Elle, for example. The sex stuff might turn Meryl off from the role. Or maybe she doesn't feel she could play it convincingly. It's all the more reason for me to want to see how she'd do.
It's perhaps natural to assume that films (especially ones from thirty years ago or earlier), tend to only exploit women's sexuality for box office draw. While that's no doubt true in many or perhaps even most cases, I came across a quote Lange gave that suggests this particular role is far from that:
Saturday, November 5, 2022
Where is "Extrapolations"?
Knowing that filming started over a hear ago, I've been under the working assumption that Apple TV+ will be releasing their anthology series, Extrapolations, sometime in 2022. We're well into the first week of November now, and we've still heard next to nothing about a date. No trailer, so production stills. Should we be starting to think that this might be pushed to 2023?
It's hard to say. There are some limited series that have not really done a ton of promotion, only to release a trailer and announce that it'll premiere in a matter of two or three weeks. The interesting thing to me is that if this production were going to be in consideration for awards, the Golden Globes (which return to NBC after their temporary "cancellation") will air on January 10 of next year. Submissions are already due Monday, with nominations expected to be announced December 12. It's hard to picture Extrapolations getting in under that deadline.
I'm not sure why info about the show in general has been so stingy. We know very little about any of the characters or real details of the storyline. At least Apple TV+ now has it listed on its website with the tag "coming at a later date." Super specific.
Here's hoping we get something about this soon. It's been quite a while since we've endured a Meryl project drought of this level.