Voight Sets Watch for 24
Jack Bauer has a new nemesis.
Per the Hollywood Reporter, four-time Oscar nominee Jon Voight has come aboard to play the baddie hatching the latest terrorist threat in the upcoming seventh season of 24.
The role marks the 69-year-old thesp’s first recurring tube gig in nearly four decades and mirrors the high-profile casting of Dennis Hopper as Serbian nationalist baddie Victor Drazen in the inaugural season.
Voight’s villain will make his debut in a two-hour season-seven prequel now filming in South Africa and premiering on Fox Nov. 23. The plot supposedly picks up with Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) trying to find peace in his life by traveling to Africa to build houses for the poor, only to get swept up in a coup d’etat against a powerful African warlord.
The TV movie will serve as the setup for another bad day for our hero, who once again must face down various types of torture and other dangers to prevent a terrorist attack from being carried out. The latest batch of 24 episodes officially kicks off in January, however, the Deliverance star’s character isn’t expected to reemerge until the latter half of the season.
During a career spanning five decades, Voight’s has racked up an impressive array of big-screen credits, including Midnight Cowboy, The Champ, Runaway Train, Mission: Impossible, Varsity Blues, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (with daughter Angelina Jolie), Ali and, more recently, National Treasure and its sequel. He also won a Best Actor Academy Award for 1978’s Coming Home.
On the small screen, the actor’s last recurring series role was a three-episode stint in the late ’60s on Gunsmoke, the tube’s longest running program. He later appeared in a number of well-received TV movies, including Chernobyl: The Final Warning and Return to Lonesome Dove.
Dennis Hopper to star in Crash
Dennis Hopper is set to star in the new original series Crash, produced by Starz and Lionsgate. This is the first drama series for the network. Based on the Academy Award-winning movie, Crash has begun filming in New Mexico and Los Angeles. Sanford Bookstaver (Jericho, Bones, The O.C.) will direct the premiere episode.
According to the press release, the show “will continue to focus on an ensemble cast of characters” and “will explore the complexities of social tolerance in contemporary America by digging at the meaning of what it takes to reach the American dream.” Hopper will play Ben, a veteran, maverick producer in the music biz who is looking for his last big score. Other stars include Clare Carey, Luis Chavez, Ross McCall, Jocko Sims, Brian Tee, and Arlene Tur. Crash will come to Starz in October.
Watch your backs, HBO and Showtime! This show looks good. And Paul Haggis is on the team of executive producers. He didn’t just give us Crash. He gave us thirtysomething and The Black Donnellys. Don’t mess with the Hag.
Speed 3 Ignition? I Smell a Fake!
speed3themovie.com, speed3ignition.com, speedthreemovie.com point to a website which claims to be the official website for a third film in a Speed franchise. The site features a hilarious image of Sandra Bullock stuck in a Virgin Galactic consumer space-travel spacecraft with the film’s supposed title: Speed 3 Ignition.
I just got a response from 20th Century Fox, who confirmed our suspicions that they have no involvement what-so-ever in the site. To be fair, I’m not 100% sure that a Speed sequel couldn’t be made without Fox involved. But I’m 99% certain that this is just a fan created fake. I just thought we should send out a warning before rumors got out of control. Plus we thought it was funny enough to share. C’mon, there’s a bomb on a consumer space-craft and if it drops below a certain speed it will blow up?! Sounds like almost like a Wayans Brothers parody gone wrong.
A third Speed film isn’t out of the realm of possibility. In July 2007, Dennis Hopper told The Guardian that he was set to return for Speed 3. We’ve heard nothing about the potential project since.
Jessica Alba Talks Fantastic Four 3, Dark Angel, Apocalypse
Jessica Alba is the Britney Spears of actresses. As Dennis Hopper says as he ashes, “It’s a fact.” Rumor is, Alba was invented a la Vanessa Angel on Weird Science for us movie blogs on slow days. Want to make a good and original Internet buck? Make a 2008 calendar with Jessica Alba fully clothed 12 times, or better yet, 14. Today, she confirmed to IESB that a Fantastic Four 3 is in the works, or was…
“I know the writers strike and the impending actors strike has kind of put a wrench in everything production wise. That film takes a lot of prep, a good six months of prep and about six months to shoot. With the strike, I think, maybe it’s put on hold.”
Cloy to the world: Enter “Little Franklin” into the franchise, mighty son of Alba’s Sue Storm…
“Little Franklin? Yeah, I think that would be hilarious. He’s so powerful, I think that would be a really interesting dynamic a mother-child dynamic. She’s still a superhero but she’s super-protective and he’s wild, he can do anything and has no sense of what’s appropriate, that would be really fun.”
And I’m convinced that if two more interviewers inquire about a Dark Angel theatrical movie, it will become a reality, like Beetlejuice…
We’ve talked about it, I want to work with Jim so I would pretty much do anything he wants to do.”
Somewhere outside an overrated party in L.A., the Silver Surfer is desperately texting his agent about a solo film as The CobraSnake snaps a photo of his fannypack and Nike Dunks.