Cameron Crowe’s next project was supposed to be a Jerry Maguire-like tale of love and 30-something arrested adult-lescence set within the strange world of Hawaiian mysticism and military bases called, “Deep Tiki.” It was set to star Ben Stiller and Reese Witherspoon and was originally scheduled to shoot in January of this year and but was then postponed for undisclosed reasons.
Stiller is now shooting Noah Baumbach’s “Greenburg/Untitled,“so even if Crowe wanted to start shooting he’d have to wait, plus synching up Stiller and Witherspoon’s sched presumably might be tough (do we smell recast?). Regardless, has Crowe moved on in the interim?
The Daily Swarm points to a Billboard piece about Seattle rockers, Pearl Jam and says Crowe is working on a documentary on the band, but the Billboard piece doesn’t specify super closely, but says, “[The band is] working on a film with director Cameron Crowe” (though the writer did clarify to us and yes, it’s a doc).
Regardless, we did find the original interview with Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready, conducted by Seattle Radio’s KIRO’s “Ron & Don Show,” in which he mentioned Crowe. McCready talked about the Ten reissues and said all of it was leading up to Pearl Jam’s 20th anniversary as a band in 2011 that would culminate in a documentary that Crowe would be directing.
“Hopefully, we’re trying to do a movie with Cameron Crowe about… with all our footage, with all of our existing footage that we have,” McCready said.
Will this delay “Deep Tiki”? Can Crowe work on both at the same time, a la Marty Scorsese working on his Bob Dylan documentary while also preparing drama features simultaneously? Or perhaps he can shoot it in between if the doc isn’t due until 2011. All speculation. All we know is we want to see “Deep Tiki” and any Cameron Crowe-made Pearl Jam doc.
Crowe’s record label Vinyl Films recently helped Pearl Jam with the repackaging of the reissues for their debut album Ten. And the band contributed two songs to the soundtrack of the Crowe’s 1992 film “Singles” (“State of Love and Trust” and “Breath”), and members of the group had cameos in it as well (in the band within the band, Citizen Dick).