It worked for the Fondas with “On Golden Pond“, so why not for the Arquettes with, er, the “psychological thriller” “Glutton”? Variety reports that the awkward youngest sibling David is intent on getting the band back together, as a case of mutually-beneficial Hollywood nepotism wins the day again. Casting his older sister Patricia in his second full-length feature as director, not only gives her flagging/non-existent movie career a leg-up, it’s also balances the karma after David’s stint directing three episodes of her lamentably dull TV show “Medium” which somehow managed to stay on the air for seven whole years before being cancelled last December.
Presumably making the most of the vapors left over from the underperforming “Scream 4”, Arquette’s “Glutton,” when it was initially announced a couple of months ago, promised to be a shocker for two reasons: one, because it promised to ape Rob Reiner’s “Misery”, and two, because – dramatic gasp – it’s going to be shown in 3D.
Patricia, who made the graceless segue from working with David Lynch and Martin Scorsese in the 1990s to solving crimes with her telepathic abilities on television, joins a bizarre hodge-podge of actors already cast. One is Kacey Barnfield, best known to theatre-going audiences for her work in “Resident Evil: Afterlife” and to magazine-reading audiences for her work in her underwear. The other is character actor Abraham Benrubi, who will test his limits as a performer by taking on the lead role of a 1200 pound bed-ridden old man. Arquette will play his sister (hopefully it’s not autobiographical then) and caretaker in a script penned by Kenny Yakkel.
Neither sibling has enjoyed any draw at the box office since the mid-1990s, and the ravages of time will presumably do little to change that, no matter how much David bares his soul to Howard Stern. Similarly Arquette’s last feature film as director was the forgettable-though-campy hippie-slaughter pic “The Tripper” which predictably failed to set the world alight, and also conveniently starred Patricia’s ex-husband Thomas Jane. “Glutton,” exec-produced by David Arquette and estranged wife Courtney Cox’s company Coquette Productions, will begin filming in Canada later this year, for an eventual release in 2012. Meanwhile the rest of the Arquette clan — overlooked Rosanna, surly Richmond and trans-woman Alexis — are all probably sat by their respective Blackberrys waiting for that call.