(Left) Channing Tatum arrives for The Oscars® at the Dolby® Theatre in Hollywood, CA, February 24, 2013. Credit/Provider: Bryan Crowe / ©A.M.P.A.S. Copyright: ©A.M.P.A.S. (Center) Oscar Isaac arrives on the red carpet of The 92nd Oscars® at the Dolby® Theatre in Hollywood, CA on Sunday, February 9, 2020. Credit/Provider Matt Petit / ©A.M.P.A.S. Copyright ©A.M.P.A.S. (Right) Zazie Beetz arrives on the red carpet of The 92nd Oscars® at the Dolby® Theatre in Hollywood, CA on Sunday, February 9, 2020. Credit/Provider: Nick Agro / ©A.M.P.A.S. Copyright: ©A.M.P.A.S.
Preview:
- Channing Tatum, Oscar Isaac and Zazie Beetz are aboard ‘Kockroach’.
- Matt Ross is in the director’s chair.
- It’ll adapt the 2007 novel.
It’s not every day that a quirky indie movie based on a novel that itself is a spin on a classic of the paranoia genre attracts A-list names, but ‘Kockroach’, which has Matt Ross calling the shots, has nabbed Channing Tatum, Oscar Isaac and Zazie Beetz for its leads.
With ‘American Sniper’ producer Andrew Lazar backing the movie and Black Bear selling international rights to the movie at this year’s Toronto Film Festival, Ross aims to have the cameras rolling this coming January in Australia.
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What’s the story of ‘Kockroach’?
Channing Tatum at the Los Angeles premiere of ‘Blink Twice’. Photo Credit: JC Olivera.
‘Bored to Death’ creator Jonathan Ames adapted the source novel, written by William Lashner under the pen name “Tyler Knox”, and it’s a darkly comic spin on Franz Kafka’s ‘The Metamorphosis’.
It begins with a cockroach waking up in a hotel room in New York City in the mid-1950s, and finding that he has been transformed into a human. Since cockroaches are “awesome coping machines”, Jerry Blatta (as he becomes known) quickly learns to walk on two legs instead of six, to recognize himself in a mirror, to dress and feed himself, to ward off predators by constantly showing his teeth, to play chess, and to fake his way through conversations.
From there, he becomes a mob enforcer, then a mob boss, before venturing into politics.
Where else can we see Channing Tatum, Oscar Isaac and Zazie Beetz?
Oscar Isaacs in ‘Frankenstein’. Photo: Netflix.
Tatum’s next film to see screens is the buzzy, funny true-crime tale ‘Roofman’, directed by Derek Cianfrance. The movie will be released on October 10th.
He’s also been at work reprising the role of mutant character Gambit for ‘Avengers: Doomsday’, and that giant Marvel production will be in theaters on December 18th next year.
Other upcoming movies include crime drama ‘Josephine’ and a variety of other projects in development.
Oscar Isaac has Guillermo del Toro’s latest, an ambitious adaptation of ‘Frankenstein’ headed our way on October 17th, before Netflix releases the movie globally via its streaming service on November 7th.
Beyond that, he has ‘In the Hand of Dante’ and will be one of the leads in the second season of Netflix dark comedy drama ‘Beef’, though there is no official date for the new episodes to launch yet.
As for Beetz, she was last heard in the voice cast of ‘The Bad Guys 2’ and has a range of projects in the works, including Gore Verbinski’s latest, ‘Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die’, horror comedy ‘They Will Kill You’ and new Apple TV+ series ‘Lazarus’.
When will ‘Kockroach’ be on screens?
Given that it has yet to shoot and the rights are still for sale, we have no idea yet when this one might scuttle into theaters.
Zazie Beetz voices Diane Foxington in DreamWorks Animation’s ‘The Bad Guys 2’, directed by Pierre Perifel. © DreamWorks Animation LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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