Jason Bateman joins THIS SIDE OF THE TRUTH!
Bateman agrees "walk on part" in Ricky Gervais' attempt to be Orson Welles.
Ricky Gervais' comedy This Side of the Truth (which he has co-written, will co-direct and star in) and I was just a little bummed out that the last third of the movie didn't really feel like it was going anywhere and wasn't living up to the promise of the great writing in the first two acts. Also I found Gervais' intentions a little too obvious (especially the stuff about relegion which he gets into) but all in all it was a great B+ script and should make a terrific movie. The central plot is clever. A world where no one can lie (it's not just that, it's a world where everyone is compelled to tell the truth... not just not lie) and Gervais' dialogue is typically hilarious and I have no doubt that you are going to be blown away by a Rob Lowe and Jennifer Garner comedic performance like never before. They both play characters specifically written for them and you can really tell. Ricky Gervais has been keeping a blog on the movie's development and has some new casting announcements for us. Some of these ran last week but a new addition today was that of the hilarious Jason Bateman (sadly just in a walk on part), which will now see him appear alongside Garner for the third time in recent memory. The other two films being The Kingdom and Juno. They have such a great chemistry together and actually Bateman could have done Rob Lowe's part pretty spectacularly in truth. John Hodgman, Tina Fey, Christopher Guest, and Jeffrey Tambor were all cast recently. The other two not mentioned in this article yet are Jonah Hill and Louis C.K. who have both been cast for a while. Gervais co-writes and directs with unknown Matt Robinson, with the casting of the smaller roles (film has 70 speaking parts) taking place right now. Should be hilarious... but I hope Gervais has tightened that rather flimsy and difficult to conjure up ending.