Well, it sure as hell has taken one heck of a long time to get off the frickin’ ground, but it finally looks like the remake of George A. Romero’s The Crazies is finally gearing up for production, with director Breck Eisner at the helm; in addition to the already cast Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell the producers have cast hottie du jour Danielle Panabaker.
In addition to Panabaker, Joe Anderson has also been cast as the town deputy, while Panabaker will play a receptionist at the town medical center.
Panabaker, I’m sure most of you know, was last seen in Friday the 13th, 2009, while Anderson’s last genre effort was The Ruins.
Friday the 13th, Mr. Brooks, and now The Crazies! Panbaker’s treading awfully close to scream queen territory at this point. What’s next for this young starlet? A possible role in Eisner’s long-gestating redux of Creature from the Black Lagoon? I guess that will all depend on A) if there’s even a role in that film for her, and B) if she gets along with director Eisner on the shoot for The Crazies. But, alas, I’m getting way ahead of myself here.
Getting back on track, the story for The Crazies will focus on the inhabitants of a small Kansas town who are ravaged by death and insanity after a plane crash lets loose a secret biological weapon into the water supply. Scott Kosar (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 2003) and Ray Wright (Pulse) handled the scripting chores for this new incarnation.
Michael Aguilar, Dean Georgaris and Rob Cowan are producing, with George A. Romero on board as an executive producer. Essentially, the big wigs are giving Lord George a big fat payday to stay the hell out of the way creatively on this one.
Production gets underway this Thursday in Georgia.