According to Variety, Giovanni Ribisi has joined the cast of “The Rum Diary,” the adaptation of the Hunter S. Thompson novel belatedly published in 1998 that will once again see Johnny Depp in the lead role as yet another surrogate for the good Doctor.
Since we don’t follow it super-closely, (but more and more these days) we also didn’t realize that Ribisi has a role in James Cameron’s “Avatar.”
The cast already includes Amber Heard, Aaron Eckhart and recent Academy-Award nominee Richard Jenkins. But Ribisi is incredibly undervalued and underused in Hollywood, so we’re glad to see he seems to be making a bit of a comeback. Maybe 2009 will be his year? He’ll also be featured alongside Johnny Depp in Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies” in July.
Depp is reportedly already in Puerto Rico and shooting on “The Rum Diary” is evidently supposed to begin March 30. According to THR, Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley were among those reportedly vying for Heard’s role, though the significant amount of nudity the role calls for may have been an issue. Heard, who is wantonly naked in “The Informers,” clearly has no problems with nudity on screen.
Bruce Robinson (director of two mostly-unimpeachable classics, “How to Get Ahead in Advertising,” “Withnail & I”) is writing and directing, which is excellent news on the surface, but the last film he did was the 1992 dud, “Jennifer 8.”
