Tom Arnold Also Circling A Role As Crispin Glover’s Brother
How far and strangely we’ve fallen. For “Freaky Deaky,” the adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel that at one time had folks like William H. Macy and Sienna Miller in the leads before going through a few casting shifts and settling on the lesser, but still somewhat respectable quartet of Matt Dillon, Brendan Fraser, Craig Robinson and Katie Cassidy. The cast was recycled again, settling on a straight-to-DVD strong bunch of Billy Burke, Christian Slater, Michael Jai White, newcomer Breanne Racano and Roger Bart. That pretty much killed whatever interest we had in the project — until now.
None other than Crispin Hellion Glover has stepped in to replace William H. Macy in the film in what is an admittedly brilliant piece of casting. Glover will play an alcoholic hard-partying movie mogul who becomes the target of an ex-hippie couple (Slater and Racano) with radical politics who try to trick him out of his millions. Meanwhile Chris Mankowski, a cop with bomb squad experience (Burke) teams with another cop (Bart) and tries to take them down. White will play former Black Panther Donnell Lewis, who is Woody’s assistant. But if that isn’t enough Tom Arnold is in talks to play Glover’s brother. Okay, producers, you win. We’ll watch this now if only out of morbid curiosity.
Bill Duke, Sabina Gadecki and Gloria Hendry round out the cast for the film that is currently shooting in Michigan with Charles Matthau at the helm.
So, why on Earth would Glover agree to be in this movie? The same reason he does stuff like “Open Season 2” or “Freezer Burn: The Invasion of Laxdale” — it’s a paycheck that likely helps continue work on his decidedly more Glover-esque films like “What Is It?” and “It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine.” In fact, speaking recently with Gordon & The Whale he revealed he’s got something else brewing. “I am in the process of writing a screenplay for myself and my father to act in together. He is also an actor and that is the next film I am planning to make as a director/producer. This will be the first role I write for myself to act in that will be written as an acting role as opposed to a role that was written for the character I play to merely serve the structure,” he said also adding, “There are two other projects I am currently developing to shoot on sets at my property in the Czech Republic. The cost of the set building will determine which one I actually shoot next. They will all be relatively affordable yet still cinematically pleasing.”
So hey, if collecting some coin to shake loose in what will probably be a pretty low rent movie is what he’s got to do to get his next uniquely inspired project off the ground, we certainly don’t blame him. And if anything, Glover’s presence alone will make whatever “Freaky Deaky” turns out to be intriguing to watch. [Variety]