Fantasy Casting
Over 20 years have passed since this classic came out in 1995 and there is no doubt it is one of the best crime thrillers ever made, with the ending that shocked everyone. For this selection I am playing the fantasy casting card where I will pick all seven leading roles from stars of today. The idea is that I am the producer given this script to select the stars that would suit the roles. One rule is I can’t consider any of the original cast members even if certain roles could still be filled by the original cast. This is a hard choice because the original cast all give fantastic performances.
Film: The Usual Suspects
New Stars: Matthew Fox, Mark Wahlberg, Colin Farrell, Ben Foster, Mark Ruffalo, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Daniel Bruhl
Replacing: Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio Del Toro, Kevin Pollak, Kevin Spacey, Pete Postlethwaite and Chazz Palminteri
Why I have picked this stars
Stephen Baldwin – Matthew Fox – McManus – McManus always made me feel like he came off slightly on edge but also well-spoken. After seeing Bone Tomahawk mixing in the Alex Cross performance I can see Matthew Fox being the perfect choice for this role.
Gabriel Byrne – Mark Wahlberg – Keaton – Keaton is the character I always see as the leader of the five-man team, I have chosen Wahlberg because we know he can be an important scene stealer with a large cast after The Departed. He has the range to play out all the emotions need through the film that this character needs.
Benicio Del Toro – Colin Farrell – Fenster – Fenster is the lady’s man of the group and with his accent he stands out from the rest of the crew, Colin with his Irish accent and different dress style could make him stand out in this role. True Detective season 2 showed he can pull off the serious roles and his crime roles he has experience in this style of films.
Kevin Pollak – Ben Foster – Hockney – Hockney is the loose cannon of the group and who better to play the modern day loose cannon than Ben Foster who has a reputation of play some of the strangest and crazy normal look people.
Kevin Spacey – Mark Ruffalo – Verbal – Verbal is the most important character in the film, he is our story teller who never looks like he could be part of the crew. I see Mark being someone who can tell the story on the same level as Spacey keeping the nervous tone in the character.
Chazz Palminteri – Chiwetel Ejiofor – Dave Kujan – Dave is the detective trying to get to the bottom of what really happened, I see Chiwetel as the right guy for this as we have seen him be back up to bigger named stars as detectives so he would be ready to become the lead one and his ability with his reaction in the final scene would work very well.
Pete Postlethwaite – Daniel Bruhl – Kobayashi – Kobayashi really is the smooth man from overseas that is the connection between the infamous Keyser Soze. We can have Daniel keep his accent for this role to make this his own character.
How will this change the film: I personally wouldn’t change the film too much, the only changes would be to make Hockney slightly crazier, Kobayashi even more mysterious and Dave slightly calmer.
I will give the same disclaimer that I don’t want to see his remade this is just for fun as The usual Suspects in one of my favorite films.
Will you be going to see this new version of the film?
Who would you rather see in this film?