Personally, I think some new Three Stooges shorts would be cool. Would Dopers like some new Bogart flicks? I’m not really into Bogie, but some new Spencer Tracy stuff would rule. New Archie and Edith? New Bonanza episodes? Leonard Nimoy could still do Spock!
Yeah, it’s creepy, but what’s more, I’m conflicted. I think this can really torpedo any hope that Hollywood will solve their lack of originality problems. Remakes are becoming standard fare, and this isn’t helping.
But still, I gotta say, I’d look forward to John Wayne facing down Richard Boone as Paladin. Or an Odd Couple movie double feature switcheroo, with Randall/Matthau and Lemmon/Klugman.
This quote from the director doesn’t make sense to me, “We searched high and low for the perfect character to portray the role of Rogan, which has some extreme complex character arcs, and after months of research, we decided on James Dean.” Except James Dean wasn’t a character, he was an actor. Why not just hire an actor and tell him they’re looking for a James Dean-like performance? And even in this case, they’re going to hire a real, human actor to voice Dean. So they’re hiring an actor to play the character (of James Dean) who will be in the role (of Rogan).
And if then who, if anyone, would be up for awards for the performance, if it’s any good?
Isn’t this great? All those yelps about ageism seem quaint now that an actor/actress can be deaged.
Now we can avoid estates claiming ““Aliveism” by simply inserting any actor in any film, whether on this mortal coil or not. Rouge One did so with Peter Cushing. Now this.
Hollywood Reporter. De Niro, Taxi Driver Win big at 374th Academy Awards Feb 8th 2303
Los Angeles:
Robert De Niro won his 11th Academy Award for Best Actor for the remake of Taxi Driver, the first since the late 22nd century. De Niro who died in <***> played the character during life in 1976.
The awards were marred by the continuing revelations of the Weinstein scandal, with suggestions that maybe just maybe the plug should be pulled, being decried by campaigners as an injustice to the seemingly infinite number of women harassed by the long comatose former movie Moghul. *
“Your directors were so preoccupied with whether or not they could they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
So damned transparent. 5 minutes on YouTube can identify better actors, in every way, than a second-rate actor from nearly a century ago ever dreamed of being. Ernst & Golykh have traveled so far up their own asses on this one that Tarantino will need to hire Emilio Estivez to hunt them down.
Yes. As a technical achievement, I am fascinated and would look forward to seeing this on the big screen.
The director’s explanation is just a nonce cop-out. How many times have unsung actors made a part their own even when they were not who was originally envisioned for the role?
Somebody still has to act out the part that “James Dean” will play. Somebody has to voice the lines. Somebody has to perform the actions. It won’t be a performance by James Dean. At best it’ll be a performance by some hidden performer, who, Andy Serkis-like, provides the motion capture and voice while wearing a digital James Dean suit. At worst, it’ll be a collaborative effort by a team of motion actors, voice actors, and a host of technicians working the digital “James Dean” puppet.
This is a publicity stunt, but actors and directors have been warning for years about the time to come when Hollywood could, if it chose, dispense with actors altogether and use Cameron’s "synthespieans’.
The article I linked to above also says, “Adapted by Mari Sova from Gareth Crocker’s novel, Finding Jack is based on the existence and abandonment of more than 10,000 military dogs at the end of the Vietnam War. Dean will play a character called Rogan, considered a secondary lead role.”
Sounds like the secondary lead role of a human will be CGI, but the primary lead role of a military dog will be played by a canine Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts graduate.
Animated cartoons have never been shy about basing characters on long-dead actors.
Hanna-Barbera cast Peter Lorre in the Addams Family cartoons about a decade after he died.
Some fans will consider it a rip-off of their favorite stars. Some fans will consider it an homage to their favorite stars. It will depend on whether it is done well, or done badly.
I would sort of like to see a Lord of the Rings movie, with Gregory Peck as Aragorn, and Peter Lorre as Gollum. Or Dune, with Sidney Greenstreet or Orson Welles as Baron Harkonnen.
This is the most outrageous bit of the story. Why would you name a child Zelda?
This story really isnt a big deal. Had the filmmakers rights to Deans body of work then they wouldnt need an actor to fill out the role. The Fred Astaire Dirt Devil commercial was fairly cool. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44tKpQ5Fo2Y
I cant wait for the 2116 electoral rematch between Holographic Hillary and Doubled Don. And sometime in the future some filmmaker will take Nick Cages body of work and reimagine them with versions of Cage that can seemingly act.