Pretty near the top of my most-anticipated list is Jodie Foster’s next directorial effort, The Beaver. She’s put together an interesting cast with Jennifer Lawrence, Anton Yelchin and Mel Gibson who is starring as a somewhat stressed fellow who decides to communicate only via a Beaver glove puppet that he found in the trash. The real reason I’m excited, however, is that Kyle Killen’s screenplay is brake-slammingly awesome and definitely deserved its spot atop the 2008 Black List of the best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood.
Some more images of the Gibson/glove puppet double act after the break.
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Okay, Sarah Polley and Anton Yelchin are only kids in the sense that, heck, I’m an old man but I’ll stick by that ‘cool’ label. They’ve each just been cast in an interesting upcoming project - Yelchin in Jodie Foster’s The Beaver, Polley in Mika Kaurismaki’s Queen Kristina.
The screenplay for The Beaver is absolutely fantastic and, I’m pretty convinced, going to make for a really great film that should easily outpace the rest of Ms. Foster’s directorial oeuvre. I reported on it last when Jim Carrey was eying the lead role, but since then Peter got to tell us that Mel Gibson was taking the part. That’s right - Jim Carrey out, Mel Gibson in. Not quite as extreme a change as when Eddie Murphy replaced Sylvester Stallone in Beverly Hills Cop, but still a bit of a jump.
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Posted on Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 by David Chen
In this episode of the /Filmcast, David Chen, Devindra Hardawar and Adam Quigley praise the choice of Ryan Reynolds for The Green Lantern, finally get around to discussing some big changes to the Oscar nomination process, and analyze the social experiment that is Sacha Baron Cohen’s Brüno. Prolific online critic Eric D. Snider joins us for our review.
You can always e-mail us at slashfilmcast(AT)gmail(DOT)com, or call and leave a voicemail at 781-583-1993. Join us next Monday at 9 PM EST / 6 PM PST at Slashfilm’s live page as we review Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
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Remember The Beaver? First-time writer Kyle Killen’s spec screenplay created all sorts of buzz around Hollywood, ended up on the 2008 Black List (a list of the hottest unproduced screenplays of the year), and gained the interest of Steve Carell and director Jay Roach. /Film’s own Brendon Connelly called the screenplay “one of the few very best screenplays” he has “ever read.”
But after Steve moved on to Date Night and Roach moved on to Dinner for Schmucks, the producers moved on to Jim Carrey, who signed on the condition that they find a suitable director. Not sure what happened since, but Jodie Foster (who directed Little Man Tate and Home of the Holidays), who was one of the contenders at the time, has officially come on board the project. Carrey is gone. In his place… Mel Gibson?
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One of the few very best screenplays I have ever read was Kyle Killen’s 2008 Black List topper, The Beaver. At the time I read it, Steve Carell was attached to star and Jay Roach was in talks to direct. Roach, I might ho-hum about but Carell struck me as an absolute perfect choice. Now it seems that both Carell and Roach have moved on and the producers are courting Jim Carrey for the lead. However, The Hollywood Reporter are suggesting that Carrey signing on is conditional on the contracting of a suitable director.
Who ever takes the lead role will in fact end up getting two lead roles. Not only will they be playing Walter, troubled father and husband and CEO of a stalling toy company, they will have to give voice to The Beaver, a glove pupper that Walter finds, starts to wear without pause, and adopts as a kind of avatar through which he carries out all of his communication. Almost all of the dialogue given to the lead actor throughout the entire screenplay will have to come from the Beaver, and be delivered in what Killen describes as a “crisp English accent”.
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Posted on Thursday, November 6th, 2008 by David Chen
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Steve Carell is currently attached to The Beaver, a script by first-time writer Kyle Killen. The film’s plot describes a man who “walks around with a beaver puppet on his hand, treating it as something close to a human creature with human feelings.” Apparently the script has won rave reviews and “occupies the fantastical territory somewhere between Being John Malkovich and Lars and the Real Girl.”
It’s been an amazing past few years for Steve Carrell, who has proven he can deftly handle small roles in indie flicks (Little Miss Sunshine) and leading man status in big budget action comedies (Get Smart). And that’s not even mentioning his tremendous stint as Michael Scott on The Office, a character who he’s somehow managed to imbue with sympathy and humanity. Carell is planning on starring in one or two films when he’s on hiatus from The Office this spring. He’ll certainly have a wealth of projects to choose from, including The Adventures of Brigadier Gerard, Date Night, a Get Smart sequel, and now, potentially, The Beaver.
source: THR
