One of my favorite novels of all time, Hunter S. Thompson’s “The Rum Diary” is being made into a major motion picture starring one of my favorite actors of all time, Johnny Depp. Needless to say, I’m excited. Well now I’m ecstatic. Aaron “Two Face” Eckhart and brand new Oscar nominee Richard Jenkins have just been cast in the film. Throw in dead sexy Amber Heard and boy do we have ourselves a cast. I feel bad for Eckhart though. First he had to compete against Batman himself for Maggie Gyllenhaal’s affection, and now he’s up against Depp for Heard’s. Eckhart will play Sanderson, a wealthy landowner who introduces Depp’s Kemp–a washed up alcoholic journalist–to a new standard of living. Jenkins will play Lotterman, the editor of the newspaper that Kemp’s working for. If you’ve read the book, you’ll agree that Jenkins is expertly cast.
THE RUM DIARY, which follows Paul Kemp through his absurd and debaucherous travails through Puerto Rico in the 1950’s, will be directed by Bruce Robinson, who hasn’t directed a film since 1992’s JENNIFER EIGHT. That’s a pretty long time to be away from the director’s chair, but with such a strong cast and even stronger source material, you would have to be a real numbskull to muck this one up. Still, I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
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