Bloody Disgusting recently got a hot tip from one of their regular and reliable sources, which claims that Robert Rodriguez’s full-length version of the Grindhouse faux trailer, Machete, may have snagged part of its cast. The Playlist is also reporting similar casting rumors. It goes without saying that Danny Trejo will be back as the titular, blade-wielding Machete – but who is rumored to be joining him? I give you four names: Robert De Niro, Steven Seagal, Michelle Rodriguez and Jonah Hill.
No, you didn’t just imagine reading that…
Michelle Rodriguez (The Fast and the Furious, Lost) is the most believable of the Machete casting news rumors, primarily because there’s nothing that raises eyebrows or evokes any sort of “WTF?!” response when her name and the movie get mentioned in the same sentence. She is reported to be playing a character called Luz. Jonah Hill’s (Superbad) name being mentioned is a bit surprising considering he’s only ever swam in the comedy pool – perhaps he’ll sidestep into horror soon and be able to use the comedy/spoof-horror that is Machete to test if he’s right for the world of blood and violence.
At first mention Seagal may seem like an eyebrow-raising name to throw in the Machete mix, but the more I think about it, the more it kind of makes a weird sort of sense. With the crappy low-budget, straight-to-DVD movies which have been his bread and butter over the last few years, starring in Rodriguez’s ode to the violent B-movies may make more sense than Batman fighting bad guys.
However, the most surprising name that’s been mentioned for Machete is undoubtedly Robert De Niro. If he is involved with Machete, it would be the most random casting move in a long time. De Niro did star in Rodriguez’s Grindhouse pal Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown in the late ’90s, so I guess you could count that as a link of sorts. De Niro is mentioned in Bloody-Disgusting’s scoop as playing Senator McLaughlin;if you’ve seen the original Machete fake trailer (if you haven’t, you can check it out here), McLaughlin was who Machete was being hired to kill before he was double-crossed.
As Bloody-Disgusting points out, of course these pieces of casting info have to be treated as rumor suntil we get some sort of confirmation. But taking it at face value for now what do you think of Robert De Niro and Steven Seagal being mentioned?
Machete is slated for a release sometime in 2010.
