Chapter6 Page17
on March 18th, 2011 at 12:01 amAmericus Casting Call II: The Big-Time Hollywood Version
Whew! So all week long we’ve been having conversations with some Hollywood suits interested in making the Americus movie.
They wined us. They dined us. They told us how much they loved Americus and that we were sitting on a goldmine. They only had a few changed they wanted us to make. Just some things here and there, nothing big… Or so we thought.
Last Friday we imagined this would be an independent movie that would be well reviewed and that people would probably say, “I didn’t know that was based on a comic!” Now it’s a summer blockbuster movie that people will say. “Oh my god. I can’t believe they changed all that stuff! The book was so much better!”
The good news is that we are now millionaires. Oh, wait. Were we supposed to sign those contracts? Nooooooooooooooooooo!
Here’s what they came up:
So the biggest suggestion they had was that we really needed some star power to expand this movie to the largest audience possible. They also showed us some numbers from their marketing teams that indicated single mothers are nowhere near as popular as single fathers right now. So they proposed this solution that would solve both of those problems:
Neil Barton – Jaden Smith
Carol Barton [Now Carl Barton] – Will Smith
Audiences ate up this father/son duo in Pursuit of Happyness, and it’s a safe bet they’ll line up for more when they hear about this film. We can already hear the cash registers ringing!
Danny Burns – Alex Pettyfer
“He’s like 8 years older than Jaden Smith!’ we protested. To this they answered, “Twenty-somethings play teenagers in movies all the time. And if Peter Jackson can hobbitize Elijah Wood and Sean Astin, we can make Alex Pettyfer as small as Jaden Smith.” To this we could not argue.
Nancy Burns – Nicole Kidman
Is it cold in here? Or is it just the fact that we signed Nicole Kidman to lend her ice-queen presence to the role of Nancy. Imagine the fight at the end of chapter two with Kidman turning up the chill factor! Brrrrrr.
Charlotte Murphy – Amy Adams
Amy Adams has seen her career skyrocket the last couple years with movies like Julie & Julia, Enchanted and The Fighter. She’s charming, adorable… She’s basically the Zooey Deschanel of Hollywood movies!
Jael De Selby – Kristen Stewart
Kristen Stewart has made a career of being pouty and brooding. She’s perfect for Jael in a Hollywood upgrade of the Americus movie.
Apathea Ravenchilde – Dakota Fanning
She’s all grown up and all over the place the last couple of years! From the bad action movie Push, to the Twilight movies, to The Runaways with Kristen Stewart!
Selke – voiced by Cate Blanchett
We suggested Gillian Anderson because of her awesome voice-acting-as-a-talking-wolf work in the English-dubbed version of Princess Mononoke. They couldn’t remember who she was because it had been so long since she had done anything worthwhile, so they suggested Cate Blanchett. We felt bad For Gillian Anderson, but were happy to have Cate Blanchett on the team.
Auriel Ravenchilde – Angelina Jolie
Man, they weren’t kidding about wanting star power. They even busted out the big guns for the cameos like Apathea’s mother. Can Angelina Jolie play a character that isn’t a sexy spy shooting guns all over the place?
Grimhilder – Joseph Gordon-Levitt
After all was said and done, we were able to stick with one of our original cast choices. They explained that JGL is tired of doing movies like Mysterious Skin, Brick, and 500 Days of Summer and wants to leave that art-house crap in the dust and rake in the millions. Yay! We love JGL!
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So after all’s said and done, it looks like we don’t have much artistic integrity left in us. Fortunately, we can buy some more with the huge piles of cash we’ll be raking in from this movie. In the meantime, keep an eye out at your local multiplex this coming Oscar season.
Somehow the cast looks a bit weird.
I would have totally seen Winona Ryder as Charlotte Murphy actually
That was the joke!
And we were hoping people would tell us what their casting choices would’ve been! Do you have any more?
I cringe to be so pedantic, and doubtless these have already been edited for the final book, but I’ve spotted a few misspellings as I’ve read (from the beginning, in just a few hours!). Anyway, I saw “athiest”, “ramafacation” (from Charlotte to Neil at the end of the library town council meeting), and “preperation” (from the gym teacher), not to mention some nonsense French spoken by the high school French teacher a few pages back. As it reads now, she says, “Je mapelle Madame Saunders,” which doesn’t mean anything in French. It should read “Je m’appelle Madame Saunders.” In the next, she says, “Je suis sus professeur d’francis,” which mens, roughly, “I’m an extra teacher of Francis.” I believe you were going for “Je suis un professeur de francais,” meaning ” I am a French teacher,” but it would also work to say, “Je suis votre professeur de francais,” meaning, “I am your French teacher.” In any case, the “c” in francais also needs a cedille (that funny upside down question-mark thing them thar Frenchies use sometimes).
Sorry if this is tl;dr, but I have enjoyed the story and art IMMENSELY, and I can’t stand to see anything that detracts from your most excellent message. For an English teacher (and French student) those sorts of typos give me an eye twitch!
I take full responsibility for the tiny spelling and grammatical errors that appear on the page. It’s not an excuse, but I think between the hand lettering and the drawing, things slipped from time to time. It’s harder to spell check when you do all your lettering analog. Thanks for catching those, though. Hopefully, despite those misgivings, you’re enjoying it.
Rest assured, that all of this has been taken care of by the fine copy editors at :01, and all will be right when the book is in print.
Hi Scubachick! I can assure you those have all been taken care of by the copyeditors…and then hand corrected by me, the designer. Even the cedille has already been added in, something I never would have caught since I took seven years of spanish and the only French I know has to do with brunch foods
Thanks for your keen eye though!
Aaaaah! Nicole Kidman as Nancy?! So terrifying! Thanks for the nightmares… and the super funny blog post!
These choices wouldn’t surprise me, and would be dead on if they made it into a hollywood blockbuster, which is pretty sad–THOUGH, I’ll take Amy Adams as Charlotte–but if that means Kristen stweart as Jael, then no. NOOOOOOO.
I’d have to think about who I would like to be cast, it’s definitely a hard choice. These are great to read, love it!