Granted, talks and development of the film are in very early stages, and we usually are careful about reporting news about films that are in the first stages of development, but word has arrived that Ben Stiller is being sought to take the lead role in the very off-kilter dramedy, “The Voices.”
The film, currently being developed as a vehicle for director Mark Romanek, follows a man who “accidentally kills a woman he works with at a bathroom fixtures factory [and] he begins taking advice from his cat and dog on how to cover his tracks and avoid trouble.” It sounds off-the-wall to be sure, and not unlike Jodie Foster’s forthcoming “The Beaver” starring Mel Gibson, where a depressed man starts communicating via a hand puppet.
The script apparently goes to some pretty dark and desperate places, and we’re kind of glad to see Stiller branch out of the tentpole family and ‘Fockers’ run he’s gotten into of late. The current draft of the script has the age of Stiller’s potential character at 29 and we imagine that if Stiller signs on the script may even go through another draft.
The other side of the coin is that should Stiller attach his name to this, we could see development move very quickly. The actor doesn’t have much on his plate right now as both the ‘Fockers’ sequel and the anticipated “Greenberg” have wrapped and he may be eager to start scheduling some projects into his 2010 schedule. We’ll keep our eyes on this and see where it goes. If it indeed pans out it sounds like an interesting project.
Romanek’s next film is basically done; the melancholy, sci-fi-ish tale, “Never Let Me Go,” which stars, Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan (“An Education”), Andrew Garfield (“Red Riding” trilogy, “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus”) and Sally Hawkins.
The film is based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s bestselling novel, while the screenplay was written by Alex Garland (of Danny Boyle fame including, “The Beach,” “28 Days Later” and “Sunshine”). It should hit theaters sometime in 2010 and one of our friends got an early sneak-peek at the film and said it was beautiful. Fox Searchlight is one of the studios involved and presumably the distributor for it it later this year.