Robert Pattinson Replaces Colin Farrell in David Cronenberg’s #Cosmopolis

Let’s look at the different career paths of the two major male stars from Twilight. Taylor Lautner is doing what seems to be boilerplate action/tentpole stuff: Abduction and possibly Stretch bloody Armstrong. Robert Pattinson, meanwhile, is going a little more high-minded, co-starring with Cristoph Waltz in Water For Elephants and now taking over for Colin Farrell in David Cronenberg‘s adaptation of the Don DeLillo novel Cosmopolis. I know which actor I can respect more, without question. But what does this mean for the dedicated David Cronenberg fan?

I expect a lot of Cronenberg fans just exhaled a sad or exasperated sigh, for starters. I’ll admit that my own interest in Cosmopolis just took a dive. It’s a weird situation, where I can really respect Robert Pattinson for taking the gig, but him doing so really seems to ding the movie’s potential.

But what the hell; I’ve trusted Cronenberg for years and I’ll trust him again now. In the same way that I hope John Hillcoat can do a little technical rehab on Shia LeBeouf in The Wettest County in the World, I’m hoping that Cosmopolis will be a vessel to break Mr. Pattinson out of his Twilight mode. (And, to be fair, the Twilight films are hardly a venue in which to judge an actor — they’re so specific, and so dumb, that I think they could make even Daniel Day-Lewis look terrible.)

Pattinson will be onscreen a great deal in this film. Cosmopolis is about a whizkid financial guy — presumably a much more dynamic role than Twilight offers — and takes place almost entirely in a limo that is transporting him across the city during the course of a day. Other cast is attached (Marion Cotillard) or in talks (Paul Giamatti). No confirmation on those names yet, or on additional cast members.

Meanwhile, how big of a Total Recall fan — or a paycheck fan — is Colin Farrell to choose Len Wiseman’s new Total Recall over working with David Cronenberg? I like Farrell a lot, and think he’s made some interesting and generally good choices in his career. But this one is a serious WTF situation.

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