Todd Phillips and Nima Nourizadeh have lined up a whole host of unknowns to star in their mysterious low budget, cinema verite affair “Project X,” as per their original open casting call.
Seen above in a clockwise manner are cast members Miles Teller, Kirby Bliss Blanton, Dax Flame, Alexis Knapp, Thomas Mann and probably Nichole O’Connor with the un-IMDB-able likes of Oliver Cooper and Jonathan Daniel Brown also attached to star. The picture will be helmed by Nourizadeh from a script by Matt Drake — which itself is based on a treatment by “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World” scribe Michael Bacall — and is revealed to center on “a group of kids documenting a house party that suddenly goes awry” in a documentary-like style as seen in Matt Reeves’ “Cloverfield.”
So where might you recognize any of these actors from? Flame is actually an internet sensation described by one site as “a video blogger on YouTube who appears pathetic, creepy, and antisocial in his videos for the amusement of his viewers.” They’re not wrong either and if Nourizadeh can harness his abilities, there’s probably some sort of McLovin’ style appeal there.
Others seem to have had mainly bit part roles in Hollywood with Teller set for a role in John Cameron Mitchell’s upcoming “Rabbit Hole” and the “Footloose” remake; Blanton has been in “Entourage” and “Hannah Montana;” Mann has a role in Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden’s “It’s Kind Of A Funny Story”; while the Megan Fox-archetype Knapp was in ‘Percy Jackson’ and “Couples’ Retreat” and has been romantically linked with Ryan Phillipe, a known talent spotter having dated Reese Witherspoon and Abbie Cornish before her.
That said, the cast as a whole is more or less an unknown quantity which will play out interestingly when the time comes for its marketing and release. We don’t think it’ll be much of a hindrance to the film’s box office prospects though; were the cast of “Superbad” or “Cloverfield” that well known to general audiences at the time? And surely “from the producer of ‘The Hangover'” is as big a drawcard as ‘from the producer of ‘Knocked Up'” at this point in time.
Shooting on the project begins next week for a November 23rd, 2011 release.