While everybody and their mother remembers Dermot Mulroney from his role as the best friend in My Best Friend's Wedding, the actor has actually has quite a diverse career on his resume. Most recently, he could be seen in the family dramedy August: Osage County, a film about a family ready to tear itself apart during a time of crisis. It looks like that gig was merely a warm up for his latest role, as he's just been announced as one of the stars of Leigh Whannell's directoral debut, Insidious: Chapter 3.
The announcement was made through an official press release from Focus Features, as well as an announcement from Whannell's Twitter feed. As you can see by the text below, the first time director is extremely amped to have Mulroey on-board.
The continuation of the strong performing/low budget horror franchise will show the exploits of a new family, more than likely meaning that Dermot Mulroney will be filling the paternal shoes of Patrick Wilson, who has a new horror franchise brewing with The Conjuring 2 (which is being directed by former Insidious helmer James Wan). Insidious 3 will, however, mark the return of the paranormal team of Specs, Tucker, and Elise, who despite her death in the first film, is still a vital part of the team. After all, this is a ghost hunting franchise, and that's the perfect venue for the old "previous installment's character comes back as a ghost" trick. Not to mention it's kind of cool to have a ghost on your ghost hunting team... just ask Michael J. Fox!
While I'm not a fan of the Insidious franchise, I do know that Insidious: Chapter 3 is a dead certain moneymaker for the series' new home at Focus Features. Both previous installments were released independently under the FilmDistrict banner, with Sony Pictures handling the home video releases. This installment has the potential to be the series' highest grossing entry, with the $100 million mark not far off domestically if the film can only slightly improve on the last film's $83.5 million domestic take.
Which leads to why casting Dermot Mulroney is such a brilliant move for Insidious: Chapter 3. While this is the furthest thing from stunt casting, having Mulroney in the film has a sort of novelty factor to it - especially considering that the closest he's come to starring in a horror picture was his small role in the Chan Wook Park's family-centric thriller Stoker. Come to think of it, a lot of his biggest roles have been in films dealing with families, The Family Stone and About Schmidt included. So what better way to boost the presence of your family-centric horror franchise than to cast one of the top actors in the family-centric film business? If this works, does this mean we might not be far off from seeing Jodie Foster in Insidious: Chapter 4?
Insidous: Chapter 3 opens on April 3, 2015.
