I’d like to say that today’s news will be all denials of casting rumors; it’s starting to look that way, and I’m ready to puncture all those Batman 3 ‘reports’ because most of them are only dreamland silliness.
But this one is actually a downer; Coming Soon has it that Javier Bardem won’t be in Joe Carnahan’s Killing Pablo after all. His status with respect to the flick has been edging towards limbo for a while, but for all manner of obvious reasons it was worth hoping that things would work out. First Variety reported Bardem cast — there’s that thing about the reliability of print again — and then a later quote from Bardem suggested that it might not be set in stone. Now Bardem has told Coming Soon that reports of his participation were a ‘mistake’. Whether Bardem was never finalized in the first place or that he dropped out to spend time reverse-engineering the recipe for Little Debbie Zebra Cakes is immaterial to everyone but Joe Carnahan and his producers.
(More than likely it’s a mix of the two, but now this quote that Cinematical ran a year ago from Carnahan talking about Bardem seems sadly prophetic: “I’ll get him if it’s my last … I’m gonna get him. He knows. He’s a marked man, so we’re gonna firm it up here soon.”)