The Kidd here...
And here I thought Mark Wahlberg might be the only human we'd get in TRANSFORMERS 4, with the story finally shifting away from mankind and maybe more towards... oh, I don't know... the actual Transformers.
Ha... stupid me.
Some more details have come out about TRANSFORMERS 4, courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter, and, while the story is still being kept under wraps, we at least have a little bit of a better idea as to who the players might be once that plot gets finalized.
Right now, director Michael Bay is setting off on his casting search, testing a handful of young actors and actresses for a trio of leads in the film, one of which is already taken by Marky Mark. The film will revolve around Wahlberg and his daughter - with Isabelle Cornish (sister of Abbie), Nicola Peltz (THE LAST AIRBENDER), Margaret Quallay (Andie McDowell's daughter) and Gabriella Wilde (CARRIE) the names being run through the process right now for that slot.
The third lead would be the daughter's boyfriend, who is a race car driver (Who else is envisioning a scene where this guy manages to outrun one of the Decepticons on the road?), and right now the list of candidates is comprised of Luke Grimes (TAKEN 2), Landon Liboiron (TERRA NOVA), Brenton Thwaites (BLUE LAGOOON: THE AWAKENING), Hunter Parrish (WEEDS) and Jack Reynor.
Any new cast would be required to sign up for three pictures, meaning Paramount is looking at another TRANSFORMERS trilogy for this particular set of characters to be centered around and perhaps more of the same that we didn't like abou the initial three movies - more humans, too few robots.
But TRANSFORMERS isn't the only series looking to cast a key young actor, as the continuation of Spidey's untold story (i.e. his parents) is searching to fill a familiar character role.
Brady Corbet (MELANCHOLIA), Dane DeHaan (CHRONICLE) and Alden Ehrenreich (BEAUTIFUL CREATURES) seem to be the most popular names being tossed about right now to play Harry Osborn. Yes, THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 is set to go there. The role is said to be tailored more for a "dark, edgy" actor, and those three seem to fit the perception of what that is within the rebooted Spidey universe.
I've been quite outspoken in my dislike of THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, namely for it going against everything we've come to understand about the core of Peter Parker and Spider-Man and flubbing these major aspects of the character for something dark and edgy... but I can't see how moving towards Harry Osborn and Norman Osborn really do anything but draw further comparisons to the Raimi trilogy of films that right now look far superior to what Sony/Columbia is dealing us.
We've already gone down this road before with the Green Goblin... quite extensively... over three films. Do we need potentially two more? Isn't that overkill? Besides, what then makes this trilogy any different than Raimi's? Feels like the same thing, only of poorer quality, by tracking the exact same characters... again. There is a vast array of villains and character parallels that could be examined over the course of a new Spider-Man trilogy that going back to the Osborns, which is clearly inevitable after some of the details of the first film, seems not only repetitive but lazy and lacking of any type of imagination.
I'm still going to be hopeful of any Spider-Man movie, because I love Spidey... but more of the same doesn't sound like a good idea from the outset.
-Billy Donnelly
"The Infamous Billy The Kidd"
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