Well, that didn’t take long. Just one day after “A Good Day To Die Hard” got a new title and release date, the shortlist process has begun for the actor who helps Old Man McClane defeat some Russians as his son. And as it usually goes with this sort of thing, it’s a grab bag bunch of folks.
Ben Foster, Paul Dano, Aaron Paul and Milo Ventimiglia will apparently all be reading for the part, according to Variety, with Paul Walker also a candidate wanted by Fox, but the word is he won’t be testing. The idea is that whoever wins the part, will theoretically carry the franchise forward, so it’s certainly a tremendous career opportunity for these thesps. Foster is no stranger to genre fare having earned his stripes on movies like “X-Men: The Last Stand,” “30 Days Of Night,” “The Mechanic” and the forthcoming “Contraband.” And while we’d love for the actor to stick to doing the dramas we love him in, those can’t pay the bills alone and he’d definitely be a solid choice. Same for Paul, who everyone knows as Jesse Pinkman from “Breaking Bad,” and this gig would be a huge launch into the the big screen that so far has eluded him. Dano seems like an odd choice but he got his feet wet in tentpole fare with “Knight & Day” and “Cowboys & Aliens,” though we think he’d make a weird match with Willis. Same with Ventimiglia, probably still best known as Peter Petrelli from “Heroes.”
How these actors get on with Willis during the read will apparently be a big factor in determining who wins the role, as the actor has an iron grip on the franchise and obviously will only want to share the screen with somebody who can bring some serious game to the proceedings. But all this may be bunk anyway, as Fox has hit Twitter to deny the reports saying, “If only it were true…” But then again, most studios generally don’t formally acknowledge short lists anyway during a casting process.
So take this all with a bit of a grain of salt for now, still lots of time for casting to happen as the movie won’t land until February 14, 2013.