JJ Abrams’ latest, Super 8, has been developing under the usual cloud of secrecy with which the producer/writer/director likes to shroud all his projects. But now word has leaked about two of the first casting decisions, with Vulture reporting that Kyle Chandler and Elle Fanning are on for roles in the sci-fi drama thriller.
While we conjure up visions of Abrams stalking around his Bad Robot production office, Force-choking employees until he tracks down the source of the leak, we don’t think we should be too hard on whoever let this sneak out, since there’s very little information on exactly who they’re playing.
And in true Abrams style, there’s almost nothing on what the film is actually about. We do know it’ll feature young types shooting a movie on the camera of the title, who discover something strange thanks to a crashed military train. The teaser gave some info on the train aspect, and mentions the fact that the government has closed part of Area 51 and is moving whatever was stored there to Ohio.
But whomsoever he’s playing, we’re enthusiastic about the idea of Kyle Chandler in anything: after paying his dues for years on TV and movies, he knocked the role of Coach Eric Taylor out of the park (or should that be scored a touchdown, given the subject matter?) in the telly version of Friday Night Lights and he’s a solid choice. The younger Fanning, meanwhile, has been putting out decent performances for a while now in the likes of Babel and **Reservation Road **and has a bigger part in Sophia Coppola’s **Somewhere **(for which she's had some very positive reviews from the film's Venice debut).
Given that **Super 8 **is gearing up to shoot shortly, expect more snippets of information to gradually escape. Provided JJ Abrams doesn’t make his human cast and crew vanish and replace them with robots…