We recently heard that DreamWorks had acquired EA’s Need for Speed game to give it the big screen treatment, and now Zap2it report that the studio has put out an offer to Kitsch to take the lead.
They note that the studio says no offer has been extended, but that their reliable source maintains Kitsch is the only candidate on the table right now.
Brothers John (Coach Carter, Real Steel) and George Gatins have penned the script, and Act of Valor’s Scott Waugh is set to take the helm.
Though John Carter and Battleship didn’t perform commercially, the blame for that largely hasn’t been placed on Kitsch’s shoulders, and Peter Berg (Battleship, Hancock) has already announced he’ll be returning to work with the star in Lone Survivor, with Mark Wahlberg and Ben Foster set to join him. So things continue to look bright for the rising talent.
It sounds like it could still be early days on the Need for Speed front, but a lead like this has the potential to reignite Kitsch’s career a little in the years to come. If the film works a little magic like The Fast and the Furious did back in 2001, and brings an ensemble together rather than a single leading man – like Kitsch’s latest film, Savages (which hits UK theatres on 28th September) – then it could certainly be a strong addition to his upcoming slate.
Need for Speed has an enormous audience who love the original video games, and whilst some – both players of the game, and newcomers to it – will be sceptical about a film adaptation, The Fast and the Furious franchise is doing better than ever, and with that series making the awesome transition into the heist/action genre, there could well be a market for a new racing film like this. More as we get it.
Seriously? The only reason Taylor Kitsch is still considered for roles is because journalists keep insisting he has talent. The audience disagrees.
You think? I’m still very much of the opinion that he wasn’t to blame for John Carter and Battleship being terrible. He’s great in Friday Night Lights. DS
I am not of the generation that thinks scowling = acting “intensity”.
Harrison Ford took absolutely horrible dialog and turned it into cinematic history in Star Wars. Even with all that momentum behind him, Hayden Christensen couldn’t do the same thing, despite equal conditions, and Hayden comes from that same school that taught kids that “a furrowed brow means I am acting”.
Likewise, Anthony Hopkins turned an absolutely ridiculous role in Silence of the Lambs into a historic one. That movie should have failed, but it was saved by the actors.
Actors can rise above their material, and Kitsch has proven his ability to fail under those conditions each time, costing Hollywood studios fortunes.
Unfortunately, acting school is spitting out “scowlers” like Christensen, Kitsch, Taylor Lautner, Garret Hedlund, Josh Hutcherson and a dozen others with prepackaged, generically-asexual double-last-names that the casting directors — who have shifted from hiring only pretty girls to hiring only pretty boys — are eating up. (Double entendre intended.)
So I am sure there is an entire generation that will think these guys are acting, but I can assure you they aren’t. They are reading lines while squinting. Even Clint Eastwood had to move past that to get respect.