The First Ever Fantasy Hollywood Draft
[[wysiwyg_imageupload:1906:]]Every entertainment website has fun with “casting calls” for movies we’d all like to see get made by Hollywood. But what if we turned this process into a bit of a competition by placing limitations on who could be chosen and then compared each respective production based on the strength of the general idea, vision and cast alone? Well, ladies and gentlemen, what you get is the first ever, Fantasy Hollywood Draft, and the principles of this game operate along the same lines as fantasy sport leagues.
Seven of CosmicBookNews.com’s contributors got together to put our unique perspectives to the test to see if any and/or all of us have what it takes (more likely, more than what it takes) to lay the groundwork for true Hollywood magic in lieu of the drivel it seems more concerned with outputting in general, year after year. Our EIC, Matt McGloin, Chris Bushley, Brian Amey, Kevin Faltisco, Casey Gordon, John Tripi and yours truly, Lawrence Napoli conducted a round by round drafting of Hollywood talent to build our fantasy productions.
As for the rules, we each drafted one director and seven featured actors with the stipulation that no individual talent that was chosen with a draft pick could be used simultaneously with another person’s production. This reproduces the effect of an actor’s availability provided all of these productions would get made around the same time frame. Of course, few casts are comprised of just seven actors, and so each theoretical production was allowed any number of supplemental cast members that could be drawn from the remaining talent pool. For instance, if nobody drafted William Shatner — and every one of us figured he’d be a great addition after the draft, we could all include him in our casts.
None of us knew what kind of film any of the others were individually drafting for. That information will only be revealed when each of us write an article presenting our fantasy films to the online community. Then we leave it to you, the readers, to determine who constructed the best “fantasy film” and if any one of them could/should be something Hollywood ought to look into. Everyone seems to have clear ideas for their films as some interesting choices were made that are atypical of “who’s hot right now.” Greater risk taking in casting is something Hollywood has clearly lost touch with, so perhaps some of our selections will be eye-opening if given a moment or two to percolate.
Draft order was determined by names drawn from a hat, and what follows is the round by round, overall order of our actual draft picks.
[Round 1]
1) Kevin – Tom Hiddleston
2) Chris – Frank Daranbont (director)
3) Lawrence – Christopher Nolan (director)
4) Matt – Joss Whedon (director)
5) Brian – Quentin Tarantino (director)
6) Casey – James Cameron (director)
7) John – George Lucas (director)
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[Round 2]
8) John – Karl Urban
9) Casey – Patrick Stewart
10) Brian – John Malkovich
11) Matt – Robert Pattison
12) Lawrence – Liam Neeson
13) Chris – Zach Mills
14) Kevin – Jonathan Liebesman (director)
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[Round 3]
15) Kevin – Cillian Murphy
16) Chris – Rhys Ifans
17) Lawrence – Gary Oldman
18) Matt – Viggo Mortenson
19) Brian – Jospeh Parsons
20) Casey – Chris Hemsworth
21) John – Jeffrey Combs
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[Round 4]
22) John – Chuck Norris
23) Casey – Sean Connery
24) Brian – Anthony Hopkins
25) Matt – Steven Strait
26) Lawrence – James McAvoy
27) Chris – Willow Shields
28) Kevin – “Dane” Judi Dench
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[Round 5]
29) Kevin – Jeremy Renner
30) Chris – Gene Hackman
31) Lawrence – Michael Fassbender
32) Matt – Christina Ricci
33) Brian – John Goodman
34) Casey – Jack Nicholson
35) John – Gina Torres
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[Round 6]
36) John – Andrew Lincoln
37) Casey – Tom Felton
38) Brian – Leonard Nimoy
39) Matt – John Cho
40) Lawrence – Joseph Gordon Levitt
41) Chris – Rachael McAdams
42) Kevin – Kate Beckinsale
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[Round 7]
43) Kevin – Charles Dance
44) Chris – Julie Andrews
45) Lawrence – Olivia Wilde
46) Matt – Carlie Casey
47) Brian – Sean Penn
48) Casey – Cate Blanchett
49) John – Amy Adams
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[Round 8]
50) John – George Takei
51) Casey – Josh Hutcherson
52) Brian – Robin Williams
53) Matt – Christoph Waltz
54) Lawrence – Tim Roth
55) Chris – Riley Griffiths
56) Kevin – Joseph D. Kucan