Universal’s State of Play nightmare may have finally come to an end. The film, which lost Brad Pitt last week and needed to find a star ASAP to start filming by pretty much NOW, has roped in Russell Crowe. Director Kevin Macdonald flew to Australia over the weekend to cajole the actor into appearing in his movie – that’s after spending a week trying to convince Pitt to stay in the film despite being unhappy with the current script. Macdonald has put a damn sight of effort into getting this film off the ground, so let’s hope it pays off for him. Either way, expect the DVD to have a massive slobbering all over Crowe – no matter how many phones he may toss at the director, he’ll still be Macdonald’s favorite guy on this movie.
According to Variety, Crowe had to make time in his schedule because he’s committed to Ridley Scott’s Nottinhgam, but I understand that the script for that isn’t finished, and with the strike and all won’t be finished until after the sides come to an agreement*.
State
of Play is based on a BBC miniseries about a journalist investigating a
murder that leads to an up and coming politician (to be played by
Edward Norton) with whom he was once buddy buddy. Apparently the miniseries is very good, but I hate watching anything with subtitles.
*ie, around December 8th.