Movies
‘R.I.P.D.’ Just Got Incredibly Sexy…
Update #2: Deadline adds that Mike O’Malley, who is a series regular on “Glee” has just been cast, while THR adds that James Hong, the veteran Asian-American actor who has appeared in cult classics such as Blade Runner and Big Trouble in Little China has also been added to the list of stars lining up Universal’s supernatural comedy. R.I.P.D.
Add Marisa Miller‘s (pictured inside) name of recent Victoria’s Secret and Sports Illustrated models that are slinking into acting. Miller, who was a Victoria’s Secret Angels and 2008 SI Swimsuit cover girl, has inked a deal to join the cast of R.I.P.D., Universal’s supernatural action movie starring Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges, writes Heat Vision.
The project marks the feature debut for Miller, who has appeared in episodes of “Entourage,” “Gary Unmarried,” and “How I Met Your Mother.”
Robert Schwentke is directing the project, which follows a murdered cop (Reynolds) who is recruited to work in the Rest in Peace Department, a police force comprised of ghosts who battle spirits unready to depart this world.
Bridges is playing Reynolds’ ghostly partner and Miller will be his human avatar, the form humans see when Bridges’ character is in his earthly form.
Kevin Bacon, Mary-Louise Parker, and Stephanie Szostak are also in the cast.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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