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Cusack Selects 'Jury' Duty

Josey1Josey1 Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
edited April 2002 in General Discussion
Cusack Selects 'Jury' Duty
Mon Apr 15, 3:18 AM ET
By Michael Fleming

NEW YORK (Variety) - John Cusack will star in the long delayed adaptation of the John Grisham novel "The Runaway Jury," while Naomi Watts ("Mulholland Dr.") is considered the front-runner to play the female lead.

Photos

Reuters Photo


Cusack will play a jury foreman in a landmark lawsuit against a gun manufacturer who is being pushed and pulled in all directions to manipulate the high-profile case. His commitment appears to have finally firmed a promising project that has come together and fallen apart on two different occasions.

The most recent collapse shocked Hollywood, when Grisham, whose $8 million deal came with cast approvals, brought "Runaway Jury" to a screeching halt, as he refused to approve a package of Will Smith and director Mike Newell last December.

That had a ripple effect all over Hollywood, because Newell quickly moved on to meetings with Julia Roberts to next team on "Mona Lisa's Smile," while Smith reteamed with Martin Lawrence and director Michael Bay in "Bad Boys 2" and once again with Bay on the Warner Bros. sci-fi film "I Am Legend."

Director Gary Fleder ("Don't Say a Word") signed on after the December collapse.

When originally purchased, "Jury" had Edward Norton, Gwyneth Paltrow and Sean Connery ready to go with director Joel Schumacher, until that director had second thoughts about making a drama that at the time revolved around a precedent-setting trial against the tobacco industry, after that industry lost several similar landmark cases. Fox-based producer New Regency then revamped the storyline so that the defendants are gun manufacturers.

Cusack is now filming the James Mangold-directed whodunit "I.D." at Columbia; he will begin filming "Runaway Jury" in the fall.

He also recently starred in and produced "Max," playing a young German art teacher who befriends a young student named Adolf Hitler. The Menno Meyjes-directed film, which also stars Leelee Sobieski, hasn't yet secured a domestic distributor. It is still in post-production and will likely debut at one of the major fall festivals.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/variety/20020415/film_variety/film_cusack_dc_1


"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878

Comments

  • IconoclastIconoclast Member Posts: 10,515 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    For anyone who has not read The Runaway Jury, it is presents an extremely hostile stereotype of the tobacco industry. IMO, it is much more shallow than previous Grisham books. After HolierThanThouWood finishes with this version, expect to see firearms manufacturers selling full auto weapons out of the backs of their cars to spaced-out druggies. Talk about free publicity for the confiscation Gestapo!
  • He DogHe Dog Member Posts: 51,593 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I am inclined to agree with Iconoclast. The book was shallower than some previous works, and I doubt the movie will live up to "A time to kill." Too bad, Cusack is a talented actor and funny guy.
  • Shootist3006Shootist3006 Member Posts: 4,171
    edited November -1
    Hard to imagine a new Grisham work shallower than all the others. Every thing he has done (since The Firm) has been nothing but a platform for his warped left wing political beliefs.

    Quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem.Semper Fidelis
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