After first landing on The Black List way back in 2009, Chris Galletta’s debut screenplay "Toy's House" is finally moving in front of cameras this month under the direction of Jordan Vogt-Roberts (the man behind the “Successful Alcoholics” short film) in his feature film debut. Despite shooting being set to begin next month in Cleveland, we only first heard of the project a couple of weeks ago thanks to Ron Swanson himself, Nick Offerman. And now we have a better idea of the cast that’s been rounded up for the movie.
The film follows Joe Toy and his buddies who tire of their parents’ overbearing ways and decide to build their own makeshift house in the woods and live off the land, away from the restraints of the lives they have come to know. It certainly sounds like fertile ground for exploring what it means to grow up; a sort of spiritual successor to Spike Jonze’s “Where The Wild Things Are” perhaps?
A trio of seasoned teenage actors are playing the leads, with Nick Robinson (“Melissa and Joey”) taking the Joe Toy role, and Gabriel Basso (“The Big C”) and Moises Arias (“Hannah Montana”) playing his best friends, the “gentle giant” Patrick and social outcast Biaggio. Offerman will play Toy’s “grumpy father” opposite his real-life wife Megan Mullally as the mother, with The Playlist’s future wife Alison Brie playing Toy’s older sister.
Erin Moriarty (from the upcoming comedy “The Watch”) and Mary Lynn Rajskub round out the cast as a love interest that comes between the boys and a local cop searching for the missing boys, respectively. With the cast that's been assembled and the premise they're working with, "Toy's House" sounds like it could be great, so we’ll keep an eye on it. There’s no release date, though we’d wager they might complete the film in time for delivery at Sundance. [Variety]