You may already know we’re big fans of Joss Whedon veteran and pop culture god Nathan Fillion. So we’re happy to report that he’s scored a new film role, signing up to play an actual god, Hermes, in Percy Jackson And The Olympians: The Sea Of Monsters.
This sequel to Chris Columbus’ adaptation of The Lightning Thief finds Percy (Logan Lerman), the son of Poseidon, going all Jason (as in “And The Argonauts”, not Voorhees) in search of the Golden Fleece. It's all because he has to rescue best pal / satyr Grover (Brandon T Jackson) from the clutches of Kronos’ minions.
He’ll be joined by Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena (Alexandra Daddario, who, like the other two, is reprising her role). Fillion’s Hermes, meanwhile, is the father of Luke (Jake Abel), who is still working for the dark side of the mythology and will be causing more trouble. Though he was briefly glimpsed in Lightning Thief and played by Dylan Neal, Fillion’s casting points to a slightly meatier role for the messenger of the gods.
Earlier this month, Mary Birdsong, Yvette Nicole Brown and Missi Pyle all signed on to play the Fates. With Fillion aboard and Brown part of the Community cast, this is shaping up to be a geek-pleasing cast…
Though it didn’t exactly wow the critics or pull off Harry Potter levels of success at the box office, the first film in the newly minted franchise did earn a solid $226.5 million worldwide. So now we get the follow-up based, not surprisingly, on novelist Rick Riordan’s second book in the series. With a script by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski in hand, Hotel For Dogs director Thor Freudenthal is set to start shooting next month ready for a March 26, 2013 release date.
Fillion has been spending most of his time recently starring in US telly crime drama Castle, but appeared on the big screen in James Gunn’s Super last year. It will surprise exactly no one to learn that he’s also part of Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing cast, though when we’ll get to see that is anyone’s guess. The campaign for a double bill with Avengers starts here!