On this week’s Multiversity Casting Couch, we’re jumping into a long time favorite book of ours: Invincible.
This Image Comics title was created by Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker, but quickly took stride as new artist Ryan Ottley took over. It was long called by yours truly as the best Spider-Man book on the market, and by that, I mean basically the best book that combined the idea of being young with being a superhero. It’s a pretty amazing book, and you can look forward to seeing more Casting Couches for this title as we move forward (this book is pretty far into its run!).
Click through the jump to find our choices.
For the purposes of this Casting Couch, we’re only going to cast the first movie. We’ll revisit this series later to cast for the expanding cast, but for the purposes of this, we’re just going to tell the story up until Invincible squares off against Omni-Man.
The Director – Joe Carnahan
Some may not be a huge fan of Carnahan, whose very visceral, hyper-kinetic style is maybe a bit much for some to handle. He’s made three movies, and I find two of them to be fun and one of them to actually be pretty damn good (the former two being The A-Team and Smokin’ Aces, the latter being Narc). For a movie that is a mix of big action and ground level life, we think Carnahan would be a fun choice. He’s never really done anything like this before, but we think he’d be top notch.
Mark Grayson (Invincible) – Josh Hutcherson
We had a TON of names for this role. Just an outrageous amount of names. A bunch of young guys who might have been short on talent. A bunch of talented mid to late 20’s guys who were just too old. But when came down to it, we went with the nearly cast as the new Spider-Man Hutcherson. I’m not going to lie, I’m a big fan of him. He’s a really great young actor, and he’s going to be a much bigger star in a couple months when The Hunger Games comes out (PEEEETAAAAA!). To be the physical and emotional center of our story, we wanted someone who could handle both of those aspects, and we think Hutcherson is the best option on the table.
Nolan Grayson (Omni-Man) – Jeffrey Dean Morgan
For the role of Omni-Man, you need someone who is physically imposing and needs to cast a large presence, while also being able to convey a very complex set of emotions. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is a sneaky great actor (regardless of what you thought of him as The Comedian), and his look and feel would provide a great spark and foil to Hutcherson’s Mark.
Debbie Grayson – Carla Gugino
For some reason, when I look and think of Debbie Grayson, my mind goes to Carla Gugino. She’s a beautiful actress who is very powerful in her own right, and Debbie is the underrated strong core of a lot of the series. Someone who is able to stand up to both her obviously intimidating husband and her similarly strong son, and we feel Gugino would be great at doing just that.
Samantha Eve Wilkins (Atom Eve) – Imogen Poots
Eve is gorgeous, smart and the girl of Mark’s dreams. That’s sort of who Imogen Poots was in the recent Fright Night remake, in which she proved she could be way more than a pretty face. I was pretty sold on her from that, and I’d love to see her in more. We think she’d be a great opposite number to our Mark, and it’d be great to see what she could do in this role.
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Rex Sloan (Rex Splode) – Lucas Till
Rex was always…well, kind of a full of himself jerky hotshot type. Eve’s first boyfriend was a good hero in his own right, but he was sort of the antithesis hero to Mark’s all around good guy. We feel like Till would be great as Rex, as he’d basically be playing a slightly older version of his Havok character in X-Men: First Class. He’ll make it work, big time.
Robot – Michael Stuhlbarg (voice with a Ben Burtt remix)
This was a tough one, but we – and by we, I mean I – went with Stuhlbarg partially because I’ve been dying to cast him in a role for a while now, and because his voice is good at somehow being emotional and emotionless at the same time. Perfect for a tactical master robot who secretly is an old dying man (at least at first), and when paired with sound master Ben Burtt, we think Stuhlbarg could light this role aflame.
Amber Bennett – Amber Heard
Amber Bennett was really always kind of in the series as a dramatic tension device, blocking Mark and Eve from getting in a relationship. We’re casting a pretty blonde who is alluring but not enough to really take away from our love of Eve. So for the second time, we’re casting Amber Heard, because that is kind of her style. No offense to her, but hey, she’d be solid in the role.
Allen the Alien – Patton Oswalt (voice)
This is the second out of three Casting Couches where we threw down Oswalt’s name as a voice actor, but once Matt got this name in his head for Allen the Alien, he could not escape it. It’s understandable. We know Oswalt is a good voice actor. We know Allen is kind of a quirky goofball of sorts. It’s a good pairing, and we think Oswalt would kill it.
