Entertainment Weekly is exclusively reporting that MGM’s remake of Red Dawn has just added four more actors to its cast: Josh Hutcherson (Journey to the Center of the Earth), Isabel Lucas (Transformers 2), Edwin Hodge (Mental) and Connor Cruise (Seven Pounds). The four additions join the already announced Chris Hemsworth (who’s also playing the titular hero in Marvel’s Thor), Josh Peck and Adrianne Palicki.
The original 1984 version of Red Dawn was about a bunch of Colorado High School students who team up under the banner of the school football team, The Wolverines, to fight back against Soviet and Cuban troops who invade their school. Directed by John Milius, the film starred Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Charlie Sheen, Lea Thompson, Brad Savage, Darren Dalton, and Jennifer Grey.
Here’s a quick look at the roles each new cast member will be playing:
- Hutcherson will play Robert Morris (played originally by Howell), the group’s tech geek who operates all the communication devices.
- Lucas will play Erica Mason (played originally by Thompson), a cheerleader and girlfriend to Eckert. She will get incarcerated by the invaders and rescuing her will be one of Eckert’s primary objectives.
- Hodge will play Danny (played originally by Savage), the cool kid in school and Eckert’s best friend, who helps the group start their resistance.
- Cruise will play Daryl Bates (originally played by Dalton), the son of the mayor and the youngest of the group.
As for the already-confirmed cast:
- Hemsworth is playing Jed (originally played by Swayze), a marine on leave.
- Peck will play Matt Eckert (originally played by Sheen), the school quarterback and younger brother of Jed.
- Palicki will play Toni Mason (originally played by Grey), a possible love interest for Jed and a “survivor turned tough girl.”
The Red Dawn remake has had some back and forth shenanigans going on recently when the original script, written by Carl Ellsworth and Jeremy Passmore, was rewritten by Tony Gilroy (Bourne trilogy) – only to have Ellsworth brought back on board to rewrite Gilroy’s version. Talk about back and forth! The remake will update the invading foes to the Russians and Chinese.
So far the cast they’ve brought together for Red Dawn seems to be quite pleasingly diverse. Will this movie help to launch the careers of some of it stars as the original did? It’s entirely possible. Of course, some of the faces that have been cast seem to have been chosen to serve primarily as eye candy – take Lucas, for example, who just about managed to top Megan Fox on the hotness scale this summer in Transformers 2 (ya’ know, before she was revealed to be a robot).
Is it a coincidence that Lucas is playing a cheerleader with Fox also playing one in the upcoming Jennifer’s Body? Hmmm…
It’s kind of troubling that there’s been some issues with the script for Red Dawn (a rewrite getting a re-rewrite doesn’t exactly inspire confidence), but I’ll wait for more specific details on the plot and tone they’re going for before I judge this one too much.
Red Dawn currently has a release date set of September 24th, 2010.
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