Tuesday, February 18, 2014

2014 "Fan-Casting DC's MARTIAN MANHUNTER" by Ryan Daly



You may recall that Ryan "Count Drunkula" Daly of the Black Canary blog Flowers & Fishnets already cast his own "Justice League movie" heavy with Martian representation here, but he also took the time to expand that into a full solo Sleuth from Outer Space feature film. Besides Dolph Lundgren as Mongul and Sam Neill as Gorilla Grodd (which I can roll with, as seen in his Superman & Flash movie castings,) Daly has also given us some b-side album cuts from the Alien Atlas archives!

I thought Daly had picked Michael O’Neill for Captain Harding because of his similar role on Monk, only to find out that was actually Ted Levine. How good of a detective could Adrian Monk be when Buffalo Bill was right under his nose the whole time? Daly originally offered Battlestar Galactica alums Katee Sackhoff and Tricia Helfer as Diane Meade and Cameron Chase, but then flipped them on account of my whining. I approve of Daly's inclination to cast people of color as characters of non-terrestrial color, but Freida Pinto seems kind of Mrs. for the more girlish Miss Martian, plus M'gann's affecting classic traits of earthly redheads skews her that much further away. Back before Don Cheadle blew up, I listed him for DEO Director Bones. Jeffrey Wright would certainly be a swell replacement, unless that Hunger Games bread goes to his head. Nina Dobrev's Gypsy is also in the mix somewhere.

William H. Macy is certainly an inspired Professor Arnold Hugo, and I really ought to get my own options down around here. I had Anthony Perkins for the fake 1966 movie write-up that I never completed, someone else in mind for the ersatz Smallville spin-off "Middletown" that I stalled out on, and a third possibility for a major motion picture. Blast my backburner! Tom Sizemore is a big ball of blue collar crazy, so he could certainly pull off the Human Flame. Franco Nero might just euro-up Dr. V to the correct degree. I'd have never thought of David Morse for Doctor Trap, but he's perfect, isn't he? Michael Wincott is a go-to evil dude in movies, and he offers an extremely nasty, distinctive voice that, praise be, isn't Keith David's. It occurs to me that most of these actors are TV heavy on IMDb. Wouldn't this make a snazzy show? AMC? HBO? Anybody? Check out the Comrades of Mars and Vile Menagerie casting sheets for more!

Count Drunkula Casting Department

1 comment:

Count Drunkula said...

Thanks for the kind words and publicity, Frank! Maybe Frieda Pinto is a little older than the character ought to look, but my backup for her ended up in my Legion fan-cast (still to come). And thanks again for the Vile Menagerie write-ups for characters like Trapp and Hugo.

As for the TV-heavy credentials, I think that's constant with most of my lists. I do, however, still believe Martian Manhunter would work as well as a TV show as a film.