Edgar William Jacobi, also known as Edgar William Vaughn, also known as William Edgar Bright, also known as Moloch the Mystic will be played by Max Headroom, also known as Matt Frewer (also known as Gene Kranz!).
Okay, so it’s not a terribly pivotal role in Zack Snyder’s film version of Watchmen, but there is something right about a quintessentially 1980s character like Frewer getting cast as one of the set-in-the-80s comic’s out-to-pasture supervillains. Perhaps the once-stuttering voice of the artificial intelligence that sold us Coca-Cola (and gave us a very good television series) will add a little Reagan-era virisimilitude as he’s getting knocked around by Rorschach. And maybe I’m trying too hard to sell this as a significant bit of casting.
According to MTV Movies Blog, Frewer is up in Vancouver right now mixing it up with the Crimebusters (i.e. if that’s what they’re called in the latest Orci/Kurtzman draft). It’s hard to believe that the film won’t be ready until March 6, 2009 (Snyder trusts his March openings), but waiting is an acceptable trade-off for getting it right.
One day, Devin will be able to spill on all the amazing shit he saw up in Canada last month (none of which he’s shared with a soul); until then, we’ll just have to trust that Orci and Kurtzman didn’t muck things up.