Sarandon, Dreyfuss Pick Leaves of Grass

Susan Sarandon, looking better and definitely more interesting than many of the bland young chippies starring in movies today.

The Hollywood Reporter says that Susan Sarandon and Richard Dreyfuss have joined the cast of Leaves of Grass. Tim Blake Nelson wrote the script and will direct and co-star. Edward Norton stars.

Actually Norton stars and stars, as he is playing twin brothers, which is fine with me as I can never have enough Norton. In this one he plays both a college philosophy professor and  a ”small-time and brilliant marijuana grower,” as THR puts it (really? how brilliant? If he’s so brilliant, why isn’t he a big-time marijuana grower?). The prof brother gets lured into a scheme with the pot-growing brother, which gets them in trouble with the local drug lord. Who is played by Richard Dreyfuss of course. Not your usual menacing drug lord casting, but that’s okay. I trust Nelson’s plan.

(btw, I guess by now you’ve figured out that the film’s title has nothing to do with Walt Whitman poems. We’re talking about a different kind of grass here, but I have a feeling Walt would approve.)

Sarandon will play the wacky twins’ mother. Country singer Steve Earle and Lucy DeVito, daughter of Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman are also in the cast.

This is one of those movies with a comically long list of producers: “Norton and Nelson are producing with John Langley, Elie Cohn, Kristina Dubin and Bill Migliore. Exec producing are Danny Dimbort, Avi Lerner, Trevor Short, Boaz Davidson, Stuart Blumberg and Eric Gitter.” And this is for a movie with a budget that’s supposed to have a $14 million budget at most. How did we get to this place, I ask?

Shooting is set to begin on September 22 in Shreveport, Louisiana. LA is one of the states that lately has been very aggressive in pursuing film shoots, offering lots of tax breaks and such (not to mention offering a lot of humidity and the threat of hurricanes). Good luck, and keep an eye on the Weather Channel, Mr. Nelson.