Back last September we speculated that, with William H Macy signed up, Freaky Deaky was likely to attract further strong casting for its ensemble. Looks like we were right, since Variety reports this morning that Matt Dillon, Brendan Fraser and Craig Robinson have all joined Charles Matthau's Elmore Leonard adaptation.
Leonard's 1988 novel is about two former 60s activists, with a certain amount of bomb-making expertise, getting out of jail with a plan to take down fatcat movie mogul Woody Ricks, who they believe ratted them out to the feds. The spanner in the works: LAPD cop and former bomb-squad posterboy Chris Mankowski.
Macy will be playing the sleazy Ricks, with Dillon as Officer Mankowski. Fraser is Skip Gibbs, one of the explosive ex-cons, moonlighting as a Hollywood pyrotechnics advisor. And Robinson is former Black Panther Donnel Lewis, who works as Ricks' driver and has some plans for a swindle of his own.
Top stuff, and there should be plenty more to come, since we don't yet have the female topliners: Gibbs' partner Robin Abbott and Mankowski's informant Ginger Jones. Expect developments sooner rather than later, since shooting starts later this month in Detroit.