After reporting just yesterday that Michael Bay is reconsidering his position on not returning to direct a fourth Transformers film, we’ve now got some great casting news to bring you concerning the smaller film that he wants to do before potentially returning to the franchise he’s spent the past few years working on.
Variety are now reporting that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Mark Wahlberg, who’ve worked together previously on The Other Guys, are now being eyed for the two leading roles in Bay’s upcoming Pain And Gain, a dark comedy centred on two steroid-abusing bodybuilders.
“Based on a Miami New Times article from 1999, “Pain and Gain” will follow a pair of Florida bodybuilders who get caught up in an extortion ring and a kidnapping scheme that goes terribly wrong.”
The project is set up at Paramount and has been in the works since 2001, with Bay originally planning on making it in between the second and third Transformers films. He’ll be producing alongside Donald De Line, who’s worked with Wahlberg already on The Italian Job remake. The original script was written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, co-writers on this year’s Captain America: The First Avenger, who have compared its tone to the Coen brothers’ Fargo.
The talks for both Johnson and Wahlberg are very much still early, and it’s likely that Wahlberg’s busy schedule – he’s currently filming Broken City and has a slew of other movies lined up beyond that – will unfortunately keep him from joining Bay’s next project.
And whilst Johnson’s schedule is also busy at the moment, having gained some serious attention after starring in this year’s Fast Five, it’s thought that he’d have time to fit the project’s intended spring production next year into his schedule before returning for the sixth and seventh films in the The Fast and the Furious franchise, which are expected to be shot back-to-back next summer.
So though both Johnson and Wahlberg still have question marks over their heads for this project, it’s great to hear that the film is getting some traction having been in the pipelines for quite some time now. No official greenlight has been given to Pain and Gain yet, but with Bay at the helm and Johnson and Wahlberg being considered for the leads, I’m sure they’ll get the official go-ahead without much a problem, especially with the budget moderately forecast at $20m., which is a fraction of Dark of the Moon’s $195m. price tag.
