Heroes Actress Elisabeth Röhm Joins Abduction
Elisabeth Röhm has joined the cast of John Singleton's Bourne-styled teen action film Abduction. The film stars The Twilight Saga: New Moon star Taylor Lautner as a teenager named Nathan "who has long felt disconnected from his parents, and figures out why. That unleashes a chain of violent events."
After discovering his own baby picture on a missing persons website, he realizes a deep dark secret — his parents kidnapped him as a child and raised him as their own. This realization unlocks a huge conspiracy, and Nathan and his girlfriend must go on the run. I've heard it's Bourne meets Hitchcock for the Twilight Disturbia crowd.
Ricky Business reports that Röhm will play Lautner character's biological mother, a role in which Emily Mortimer had previously been cast.
The cast also includes Lily Collins (The Blind Side) as a girl friend of Nathan's that joins him on the run, Maria Bello as his mother, Alfred Molina as a "dogged CIA agent who is one step behind, determined to bring the teenager in alive", Sigourney Weaver who plays Nathan's psychiatrist, Jason Isaacs plays his father, Denzel Whitaker plays his best friend, and Michael Nyqvist plays the villain.
It's a very high concept idea, and Lionsgate acquired the spec script after a week long bidding war in February. Rumor has it that the project sold for close to $1 million. While most of Hollywood seems to be abuzz about the project, Corona calls it "a pretty mediocre script."
I'd almost expect Abduction to be the kind of show that would turn up in the fall schedule of The CW Network right after The Vampire Diaries but I think that might be a little too mean to the people making Vampire Diaries. Zing! Picture a CW version of The Bourne Identity and that's pretty close to what I was left with from Abduction, less the part where I actually liked The Bourne Identity.
Singleton is of course the two-time Oscar-nominated writer/director of Boyz in the Hood, Poetic Justice, Higher Learning, Shaft, 2 Fast 2 Furious, and Four Brothers.