As we recently wrote, Gerard Butler could probably use a new agent by this point or maybe just a better sense of material. "Chasing Mavericks" opens this weekend with zero buzz, and it will likely be just as quickly forgotten as "Machine Gun Preacher" and probably the upcoming "Playing For Keeps." But the actor will change things up and kick off the New Year as….a leprechaun.
Yes, a very different and pint-sized Butler will feature in one of the segments of the upcoming comedy omnibus "Movie 43" with a couple of co-stars who are no stranger to oddball comedy. ''Seann William Scott and Johnny Knoxville are best friends who had a falling out because Johnny was with [Seann's] girl one night,'' producer Peter Farrelly recently told EW. ''To make it up, Johnny delivers Seann a pissed-off, angry, violent leprechaun, played by Gerard Butler.'' It pays to have friends like that we suppose…
Meanwhile, another glimpse of Arnold Schwarzenegger in "The Last Stand" has arrived. It's his first post-Governator outing as a leading man, and it's in a pretty straightfoward little B movie directed by Kim Jee-woon ("I Saw The Devil," "The Good The Bad The Weird") who will hopefully give it some pop. Arnie plays a washed out LA cop, now working in a low-rent border town, who has to stop an escaped drugpin fleeing the FBI from getting to Mexico. Presumably he does more than just stand around with Rodrigo Santoro.
"Movie 43" hits on January 25th, with "The Last Stand" coming the week before on January 18th.