It looks like Jeff Goldsmith is spot-on with his sources today. We just reported that he discovered Jamie Foxx has been cast as the lead in Quentin Tarantino‘s Django Unchained, a part that Idris Elba was up for. He let us know that Elba is actually going to take on Guillermo del Toro‘s sci-fi monster blockbuster Pacific Rim, a part he was earlier rumored for. Deadline, who also lets us know Foxx is in talks for Django, now confirms the casting, saying The Wire and Thor actor has officially closed the deal.
Elba will take on the lead role of Sensi, which was previously developed for Tom Cruise. He joins Sons of Anarchy lead Charlie Hunnan, who is playing a pilot, while Charlie Day recently signed on as a professor. Check out more details on the script from Travis Beacham below, involving two separate worlds.
The first is an alternate version of Earth in the near future, decades after a historic date in November 2012 when the first kaiju, a towering Godzilla-like beast, emerged from a hole in the Pacific Ocean and attacked the city of Osaka, Japan. The second is “The Anteverse,” another universe on the other side of that gaping portal, 5 miles below our ocean’s surface. Since the first attack, the rim has been “spitting out” a variety of gigantic monsters at an increasing rate, which then stride out of the ocean and begin destroying sea-bordering cities, like Tokyo and Los Angeles. In order to combat these monstrous, otherworldly menaces, the military developed the “Jaeger” program, which trains teams of two pilots to jointly operate massive, building-sized mechanized suits of armor and high-tech weaponry.
I think Elba is one of the finest actors working today and would have loved to see him take on Django, but having him fight aliens is also OK in my book. He will also do some similar alien battling in Ridley Scott‘s Prometheus, and if Nicolas Cage counts as a space creature, in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance as well.
Pacific Rim production begins in November.
What do you think about Elba’s casting? Are you sad he won’t be in Django Unchained?