Werner Herzog is Doing a Movie with Mike Tyson, Pamela Anderson and Russell Brand?
Wow. This is awesome! I wanted to highlight this news I just read on Indiewire, because it seems so outlandish and of course because I’m a huge Werner Herzog fan. It was just announced that retired professional boxer Mike Tyson and Baywatch actress Pamela Anderson will be joining Russell Brand in the German auteur’s new project Vernon God Little. Not much is known about the movie as of right now and Herzog is still working on his upcoming fiction film Queen of the Desert.
Vernon God Little will be a satire about a school shooting. Sounds like the perfect subject matter for Herzog, who tackled death penalty in his splendid TV series On Death Row and generally deals with touchy social issues in an exemplary way. The screenplay will be written by Andrew Birkin whose most famous scripts include The Name of the Rose (1986) and Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006), both book adaptations and movies I wasn’t exactly crazy about.
That tames my enthusiasm a little bit, but the premise sounds interesting enough: “the story is set in the border town of Martirio, Texas, where a bullied loner grabs a gun and kills six of his classmates, before committing suicide. But soon Vernon is in trouble when suspicions about the school shootings fall on him” (Indiewire). The film is actually based on DBC Pierre‘s debut novel by the same name, which he published back in 2003 and won him the Man Booker Prize.
Sounds pretty wild to me. This outside of the box casting reminds me a lot of what Harmony Korine (a friend of Werner Herzog) did with Spring Breakers, which ended up working better than most people would have expected. But at this point and with my level of Herzog fandom it’s hard to judge facts objectively, so… What do you guys think?
black is white 
whoah! sounds wacky! but potentially very good.
Indeed! Wacky really seems like the best way to describe it, wish I would have thought of that 😀
Can’t tell you how excited I am about this!
I like Herzog’s recent documentaries, but I had not heard about this project (he makes at least a film every year). It seems like stunt casting but Mike Tyson has been good in each movie he’s been in–have you seen James Toback’s “Black and White”?
Oh, yes! His documentaries are absolutely fantastic!
I haven’t seen Black and White, but thanks for bringing it up. It sounds interesting. I’ve only ever seen Tyson in that first Hangover movie where he plays himself, so I don’t have much to “judge” him on.
I’m sure Herzog has something very specific in mind and that’s why he cast him. My brother says he’s going to make them look like crazy people. But doesn’t he do that with all of his characters? 😀
WTF! Sounds pretty crazy. I could do without Russell Brand though.
lol I have to agree 😀 but he was better than I expected in that new Diablo Cody film Paradise, so I’ll give him a chance.
I agree I can’t wait for this one. Werner is a legend