Thursday, June 16, 2011

The Boy From Les Miz


"Who am I? Wolverine or 24601?"
Some hit Broadway musicals are adapted to film right away, some wait a couple years, and if you're a Cameron Mackintosh show, you take over two decades to hit the silver screen.

In the aftermath of this years Oscars, where Tom Hooper was crowned best Director for his helming of The King's Speech, news came that he was the favorite to direct the (finally!) adaptation of one of the world's biggest musical: Les Misérables.

News came yesterday that song and dance man Hugh Jackman (who's never graced film with his talents) was in talks to play one of the musical's famous two leading roles: hero Jean Valjean and antagonistic (not villain, but I'll get to that another day) Inspector Javert.  When word broke that  Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World's Paul Bettany had read and sung for Javert, all eyes turned towards Jackman as the cursed tragic hero Valjean.  Initially, I was more on the side of Jackman as Javert...but it seems Hollywood won't allow their leading man to be a bad guy.  Yet, oddly, they want him in what is a brooding man role but also a very paternal one.  Jackman's done the paternal thing before, over a decade ago with X-Men, but his relationship with rogue was just weird if you ask me.

So there we have it.  Our two leading men.  Jackman as Valjean and Bettany as Javert.  I'm thrilled to see how the rest of the cast materializes.  I've always thought Geoffrey Rush would be brilliant as Thénardier, but with him having already played Javert in a film adaptation of Les Miz (not the musical), I doubt to see him back on the streets of Paris.  Who's in your dream cast?

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