ROYAL VACANCY

Convincing Gene Hackman to play the lead character in The Royal Tenenbaums
is turning into a nagging issue for director Wes Anderson (Rushmore, Bottle Rocket),
who will start filming his family drama in New York City early next year. Wes told me
at a New York Film Festival party last month that he wrote the part of Royal Tenenbaum,
a feisty, rascally father of a family of dysfunctional geniuses, for Hackman. However, he
said, Hackman “is getting old and doesn’t want to work that much." That was three or four
weeks ago. Last Tuesday I read in Roger Freidman’s Fox 411 column that Hackman was
still unsigned. However, Friedman added, “Sources tell me that Hackman has looked at
[the] script and is leaning toward a pass. [Italics mine.] If that’s the case, Michael Caine,
Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman may be getting calls from the Royal production.” Wes
made it clear to me he’s only interested in Hackman, and now that I’ve read The Royal
Tenenbaums I can see what he means. You can hear Hackman saying the lines as you
read them. The script was co-written by Anderson and partner Owen Wlson, who will play
Richie, one of Royal's deeply dysfunctional children. I can’t imagine what Hackman’s
reluctance could be about. Tenenbaums is a beautifully written piece. It's a bit deeper and
darker than Rushmore, but colored with the same deadpan humor, oddball characters, and
arch, amusing dialogue. It’s about the attempt of the senior Tenenbaum, a former attorney
who’s gotten divorced from his wife and is now jobless and nearly homeless, to warm up to
his three grown children (Luke and Owen Wilson and Gwynneth Paltrow) after having thoroughly
screwed them up as adolescents. Ben Stiller, Danny Glover and Rushmore’s Jason Schwartzman
are apparently also set for roles. Hackman is now shooting David Mamet’s The Heist in Canada,
and will soon after be joining Owen Wilson in a war film called Behind Enemy Lines. Freidman’s
source is quoted as saying, “It’s possible Owen can convince [Hackman] to do it.” If the effort fails,
Anderson should consider Beatty for the role. He’d be almost as good as Hackman, although I
couldn't "hear" him as well. The part would fit him, I think. Playing an older guy trying to immerse
himself in family values after a life of self-obsession wouldn’t be much of a stretch.

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