Back in March, The Office clown Rainn Wilson twittered that he and Slither writer/director James Gunn were about to pitch the "f''d up, low rent Watchmen" around town, and the good news is they got their deal and filming is set to begin next month in Shreveport, Louisiana. The movie is titled Super, and Wilson leads as Frank D'Arbo, aka Crimson Bolt, a lost man who takes on the mantle when he finds his wife cheating on him. Super belongs to the newly popular "real-world losers who become superheroes" sub-genre, aka Kick-Ass, so expect it to be high on references to Superman, Spider-Man, etc. Gunn described it in September as a "dark, comedic, gritty, very unusual, and grounded film". Movie reunites Wilson (right) who is a loser who decides to become a superhero after life knocks him down, and Page (left), a wannabe sidekick/comic book store clerk. Both were in Juno. Casting seems to be about complete and looks like this... Kevin Bacon is the drug-dealing villain of the piece but he hasn't got any evil scheme to take over the world, or anything like that. He is the villain for no other reason than he slept with our lead's wife, the catalyst event that sends D'Arbo on a new path to find justice, armed only with a pipe wrench. In this movie, our hero can't fly, walk through walls or throw fists of super-human strength. Gunn describes the casting...
Kevin Bacon is one of the few actors nimble enough to give life to Jacques, our supervillain with a nice streak. We need to love Jacques even while hes doing horrible things - Kevin is one of the only actors I know who can pull that off.
Playing the role of D'Arbo's wife, and no wonder Bacon couldn't help himself, is Liv Tyler... Also in the cast is Ellen Page, as the slightly eccentric clerk at the local comic book store who is desperate to become Rainn's sidekick avenger. I guess it's her first superhero role since playing Kitty Pryde in X-Men 3: The Last Stand... Slither'sMichael Rooker has also nabbed a role! The movie, to me, sounds a little like the Observe & Report of the superhero genre, and I'm really intrigued to see how it turns out. The cast is solid, Ellen Page as a comic book clerk/wannabe sidekick is top-notch, and I really flipped out for Gunn's Slither a few years back, one of the best B-movie horror flicks I've seen this decade. My only slight disappointment is Wilson starring in a lead role that sounds tailor made for Seth Rogen, but well, Wilson has been on this since the beginning and pitched the project with Gunn, so it'll be a passion project for him.