After dribbling out the first few pieces of casting for their next film, He Loves Me, Little Miss Sunshine co-directors Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton have suddenly turned the info tap to “gush” and now we know that Antonio Banderas, Steve Coogan, Deborah Ann Woll, Elliott Gould and Chris Messina have all signed on.
The movie finds There Will Be Blood’s Paul Dano as Calvin, a young writer who has a successful first novel under his belt, but is now beset with writer’s block and some internal wrangling. When he’s advised that to get the creative juices flowing again he should craft his ideal woman, he goes ahead and conjures her up on the page, only for the object of his affection to somehow become real. Dano’s real-life ladylove, Zoe Kazan, who also happens to be the film’s screenwriter, is playing his dream girl.
With Annette Bening already aboard as Calvin’s mother, Banderas will play her dodgy boyfriend, who Calvin can’t stand. Coogan, last seen in The Trip, will be a pompous rival author. Gould is on as the young writer’s therapist and Messina as his brother. Woll, meanwhile, usually found vamping it on True Blood as Jessica, is his ex-girlfriend.
The LA Times also reports that Dayton and Faris are also looking to score another Daily Show type as a possible good charm after working with Steve Carell on Sunshine – Aasif Mandvi is in negotiations to sign on.
Shooting is now underway in Los Angeles, and while there’s no announced release date, we’d expect this one by early next year, possibly as a Sundance contender, since that's where Sunshine first shined…