Edge Of Tomorrow Adds Jeremy Piven After Filming Has Already Finished
Usually you don’t hear much casting news after a movie has wrapped principle photography. In most cases, that’s something you hear about before production, or at the very least, while filming is going on. But in a twist of tradition, that’s exactly what the Tom Cruise vehicle Edge of Tomorrow, formerly titled All You Need is Kill, has done, announcing that funny guy Jeremy Piven has joined the cast. The film is in the process of filming a few new scenes, and some of them involve the Entoruage actor.
According to Deadline, the veteran performer, who plays the best smarmy asshole in the business, was already in the UK, taking a breather from the period drama Mr. Selfridge, when this opportunity arose. So it’s become a working vacation as Piven is currently filming for his role at Colonel Walter Marx.
Usually additional filming means you had to go back to reshoot scenes that didn’t work out and can’t be fixed in editing, or you needed to get some new scenes because when you finished up, you realized that your film was missing something. This is what happened with World War Z, where they wound up filming multiple endings until they finally got one that worked. Apparently that’s not the case with Edge of Tomorrow, as a rep from Warner Bros. took special care to make sure that everyone knows that this was always a part of the plan, and that we shouldn’t all start talking about problems with the film. Whether or not Piven was always a part of that plan is unclear, but he’s there now, waist deep in the action.
Some footage of the recently renamed action film played at San Diego Comic-Con at the end of July, which, from what we’ve heard, impressed some people. It certainly is a pretty cool concept, and has been described as a sci-fi Groundhog’s Day. Based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s novella All You Need is Kill, and directed by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, The O.C.), Edge of Tomorrow follows a soldier named Lieutenant Colonel Bill Cage (Cruise) who is killed in a battle with aliens called Mimics, only to wake up on the morning of the day he died. This happens repeatedly, and as he relives his death over and over, he must find a way to break the endless circle and ultimately save the world. From description, it sounds like there is a ton of cool world building surrounding the characters, and we’ve had multiple glimpses at the big mech suits that the soldiers wear into combat.
There are, however, eight screenwriters currently credited on Edge of Tomorrow, which tends to be something of a red flag in these situation. It often means that there are problems that no one has been able to fix yet. Or it could mean nothing more than everyone who takes a pass at the script gets a credit. It’s not an uncommon practice to continue work well into production, tinkering with it until its just right.
Edge of Tomorrow also stars Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, Charlotte Riley, Jonas Armstrong, and Marianne Jean-Baptiste, and opens June 6, 2014, in 3D and IMAX.
