I may have missed out on this weekend’s pre-Transformers box office winner, The Proposal, but I’ve found myself many a time watching movies I would consider mediocre only to see a single performance lock me in for the whole running time. Ryan Reynolds proved it once and for all in last year’s Definitely, Maybe that he was capable of holding an audience’s attention in a romance. His previous work in broad comedy produced equally stand-out performances, even when the rest of the film rots around him (Just Friends, for those who were wondering).
Now, Reynolds has signed up to play the lead in an independent dramatic film called Buried, which will see him playing a civilian contractor who is kidnapped in Iraq and wakes up buried in a coffin in the desert with only a cell phone, a candle and a knife.
Sounds interesting, if cryptic. Variety has the rest of the details:
Rodrigo Cortes will direct a script by Chris Sparling; production will begin this month in Barcelona.
Peter Safran will produce through his Safran Co. banner with Adrian Guerra of Spain-based Versus Entertainment, which is financing the film. The picture will shoot entirely in Spain, which is home to Cortes, best known for directing “The Contestant.”
[Reynolds] decided to go the indie route as a way to stretch his acting chops in a movie with a claustrophobic premise, and one in which he holds the screen through most of the picture.
It looks like we’ll be getting Buried while Fox decides how they are going to resurrect the Deadpool character, which is totally fine by me. Reynolds is one of those actors who manages to escape from horrible movies with reputation in tact, but it’s probably not a bad idea to let the guy set sail in his own show before shoving him into the constantly mis-handled 20th Century Fox X-Men property.
After Buried, we’ll all be able to make a better judgment about Reynolds talents and – hopefully – Ryan can make the jump to dramatic leading man.
He could also break up with Scarlett Johansson and toss her my way for Christmas, because I’m kissing this movie’s a** after one Variety announcement.
