Casting Call: The Bottoms
In which we suggest who would star in the next big adaptation, remake, or historical film.
There’s something undeniably thrilling about the adaptation of literature into film; watching the characters you dreamt-up make their real-life debut brings a satisfaction like no other. Author Joe R. Lansdale character’s will jump from page to screen for the second time this year (Cold In July premiered at Sundance in January) with the adaptation of his Edgar Award-winning novel The Bottoms. Bill Paxton (actor-turned-director) and Brent Hanley (writer) have teamed up again, after directing and writing psychological-thriller Frailty in 2001, to tackle Lansdale’s suspenseful novel.
Told in flashbacks, the bulk of the story takes place between 1933-1934 in an East Texas town wrought with racial tension. A bed-ridden, 80-year-old Harry Crane recalls the events that took place when he and his sister, Tom, discovered the mutilated body of a black prostitute in the Sabine River. The murder mystery follows the two adolescents and their father, Jacob, as they attempt to uncover the identity of the town’s alleged serial killer: The Goat Man. The family members, who seek to bring justice to the victims, no matter their race, are forced to navigate their way through a sea of prejudice and injustice until they confront the murderer face-to-face. The Bottoms has been compared to Stephen King’s Stand By Me and Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird; a sign that the film is sure to touch on the loss of innocence that defines most coming-of-age stories.
Shooting for The Bottoms is set to begin later this year, but in the meantime, we’ve come up with a cast that hopes to do your imagination justice.
Casting Call runs every Friday. For more, click here.
