There’s just not enough of Bryan Cranston to go around in Hollywood.
The triple Emmy-winning “Breaking Bad” star recently scored big with the double casting in Ben Affleck‘s “Argo” and Ruben Flesicher‘s talent-packed “Gangster Squad,” but it looks like some scheduling woes for the ever busy actor will force Cranston to withdraw from the latter project. “This is a bummer, I don’t think he’s going to be able to be in the movie,” ‘Gangster’ helmer Ruben Fleischer told BlackBook. “He got offered ‘Argo,’ and we were hoping he would be able to do ‘Argo’ and then do our film, but it doesn’t look that way. Everybody wants a piece of Bryan now. He’s the belle of the ball.” That he is certainly is.
Cranston was set play Max Kennard, a Texas transplant to the LAPD with his own brand of justice — a character who was even a favorite of the project’s own screenwriter Will Beall, who had previously tweeted that “Cranston’s rad and Max Kennard might be my favorite member of the squad. So I’m stoked.” It’s a real shame we won’t get to see Cranston feature along side Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, Josh Brolin, Anthony Mackie and Michael Pena — all of whom will star in the adaptation of Paul Lieberman’s L.A Times articles about a specialized L.A.P.D. unit set up in the ‘40s to fight the growing influence of the East Coast Mafia, namely that from infamous gangster Mickey Cohen (to be played by Penn).
Cranston devotees won’t be too crushed though with the actor’s presence on-screen set for a sharp rise over the next 12-24 months. He’s got Nicolas Winding Refn‘s “Drive,” Steven Soderbergh‘s “Contagion,” the George Lucas-backed “Red Tails,” Len Wiseman‘s “Total Recall,” “Rock Of Ages” and Andrew Stanton’s‘s “John Carter” all on the horizon. And let’s not forget that Vince Galligan‘s “Breaking Bad” is now back for its fourth season.
“Gangster Squad” is set to go in front of cameras in the late summer/early fall this year so we’re presuming Affleck’s “Argo” — which will see Cranston star alongside his helmer, Alan Arkin and John Goodman for the real-life story of a C.I.A. plan to rescue a group of diplomats from Tehran after the 1979 Iranian revolution by claiming that they were part of a Hollywood movie crew shooting a film — will be lensing around that time too and possibly preceded by a two week “Blue Valentine“-style crash course in “living like hostages.”