Paul Haggis Hires Three For His Pic The Next Three Days

It's difficult for me to get very excited for a new Paul Haggis directorial project. The stain of Crash stays with me. But The Next Three Days could be interesting. It's a remake of a 2008 French film Pour Elle by Fred Cavaye about a couple that has some problems when the woman is imprisoned for a murder she says she didn't commit. Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks are the headliners, but three more have just been added to the cast.

THR reports that the RZA is one of the three. No, I didn't see that one coming, either. Also on board is a kid named Ty Simpkins, from Little Children and Revolutionary Road, and far more interesting is the final add: Brian Dennehy. I feel like I haven't seen Dennehy do much in a while, but that's because I missed Righteous Kill. He's negotiating to come on board as the father of Russell Crowe's character.

I'm curious to see how much of the original film Haggis keeps. (He's also scripting.) In the original, the Crowe character was a schoolteacher, and he evidently goes pretty far to get his wife out of jail when she's sentenced to 20 years after being arrested out of the blue. If nothing else, this prompts me to queue up the original, which stars Diane Kruger in the role now played by Elizabeth Banks. Inglourious Basterds has made me curious to see more of Kruger's non-English work.

And because today is ridiculously slow for news, take a few minutes to enjoy this bit of comedy from Patton Oswalt. It's from his Werewolves and Lollipops set, and recounts how he ran into Brian Dennehy at the buffet table while attending the premiere of Batman Begins. Dennehy gave some great advice that is worth remembering. (The audio is definitely NSFW; the Dennehy bit begins at 4:35, and the material after it is really NSFW.)