John C. Reilly was by far the best thing about the movie version of the musical Chicago, though for some reason Queen Latifah got all the credit. Taxi soon proved that boy, was everyone wrong about that. So it’s good to hear that John might be getting back to on screen singing. Production Weekly says Reilly’s next movie will be a “musical biopic parody”. Sounds complicated.
The movie is called Walk Hard, and it’s a spoof of Oscar-baiting musician biographies like Ray, Walk the Line, and (shudder) Beyond the Sea. Usually pop culture spoof projects turn out as disasters, but this one has the too legit to quit comedic punch of Judd Apatow behind it. Judd co-wrote the script with Jake Kasdan, and Kasdan will direct it.
In the film, Reilly will play a made up amalgamation of Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, and Waylan Jennings named Dewey Cox. John will do all his own singing.
Not long ago John C. was one of Hollywood’s best dramatic character actors. Lately, he seems set on making the switch to comedy. He killed earlier this year opposite Will Ferrell, he has a hairy cameo in the Tenacious D movie, and now he’s starring in a wacky parody. Hell, he actually already played a comedy role sort of similar to this in Robert Altman’s last movie A Prairie Home Companion, where he was one half of a singing cowboy duo. I’ll miss sad Mr. Cellophane, but so far Reilly’s been resoundingly funny.
