A source for Vulture is reporting that Kyle Chandler (the star of NBC’s Friday Night Lights) and Elle Fanning (younger sister to Dakota) have joined the cast of Super 8, the top secret collaboration between J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg. Chandler was previously reported to be in talks to join the cast of the upcoming Steven Speilberg produced time travel television series Terra Nova.
Beyond the initial rumor that the two have been cast, nothing is known about the roles. Earlier this leaked summer casting call notices that were rumored to be for Super 8 called for young actors with a midwestern feel.
Super 8 is written and directed by J.J. Abrams and produced by Steven Spielberg. It will be released in 2011 by Paramount Pictures as a co-production between Amblin Entertainment and Bad Robot Producing.
Despite earlier rumors, Super 8 will not be a Cloverfield prequel or sequel. Instead, the film will be a homage to Speilberg’s 1970s and 1980s Amblin films such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. The film will take place in late 1979. The trailer that premiered in front of Iron Man 2 this summer was shot independently of the film and principal production will begin this fall.
Chandler has shown during the run of Friday Night Lights that he is a more than capable actor deserving of more recognition. I can’t wait to see what work he does under the supervision of Abrams and Speilberg. This could be a Craig T. Nelson in Poltergeist kind of breakthrough role.
Fanning, while not as creepy as her older sister, is just as fine of an actress. She’s appeared in such movies as Babel and The Nines and was a central character in the vastly under-appreciated SyFy Channel mini-series The Lost Room.
If this casting news proves to be true, I’m curious to see the rest of the actors that Abrams builds around these two. This movie has the potential to be just as entertaining as everything else Abrams has been attached to. Let’s hope that the film can live up to its potential and survive the hype that will be building around it as it films in secrecy.
