I imagine if you are a Cronenberg devotee like me, this news is likely to go down like a death in the family.
Deadline are reporting that humdrum actor
Robert Pattinson has replaced
Colin Farrell (who is busy with Total Recall) in the lead role of
David Cronenberg's character piece
Cosmopolis, his film adaptation of the novel by Dom DeLillo. Nobody, least not an intellectual like Cronenberg, trades the likes of Farrell with Pattinson, so I can only presume one of two things happened... 1) Pattinson got the director drunk at a New Years party and convinced him he was the best man to play newly married billionaire Eric Packer, whose tumultuous journey almost wholly inside a limousine, including him cheating on his wife (
Marion Cotillard), being stalked & attacked (once by
Paul Giamatti) and losing ALL his fortune, marks the majority of the film, or 2) the financial backers said to Cronenberg... look, this is the most noncommercial movie you've thrown our way in a while, now that Farrell's gone, we'll only give you the $15 million you need if you put the
Twilight guy in it, otherwise you ain't getting a theatrical release. So Cronenberg's big experimental film, now has a massive question mark hanging over the head of it's lead actor. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEXGqGkMQTE The one thing though that Pattinson's casting in Cosmopolis does is that it removes the excuses away from those who think he could be a great dramatic actor outside of the
Twilight scripts. Every actor gives good-to-career-best performances in Cronenberg's films, I once dubbed him the 'greatest actor's director that ever lived'. Just look at the body of work he has created with the likes of
Viggo Mortensen, Jeff Goldblum, Jeremy Irons and many others. If Cronenberg can't get a decent performance out of this kid, then nobody can and he ain't gonna cut it, ever. Woah, wait a minute... are we supposed to believe monotonous pale paced Pattinson can pull a beauty like Cotillard, and marry her?
Nah, that won't do. This casting sucks. Why Cronenberg, why?