A couple of months back it was announced that Kevin Smith’s follow-up horror effort to his 2011 thriller ‘Red State’ would be heading into production later this year. The project, ‘Tusk’, is gearing up for lensing on 21 October with the hope of squeezing it out for January’s 2014 Sundance fest(!) . Smith has been chatting with EW about the ‘monster’ project where he revealed that ‘Drag Me to Hell’ star Justin Long (below) has been cast to don a walrus outfit and fills the role Smith originally wanted Quentin Tarantino to take. ‘Red State’ actor Michael Parks is also set to join the “f#cked up” project. Check out the interview below.
“The movie concerns a man who was once lost at sea with a walrus. When the man returns home, he puts out an ad for a roommate. The only thing this man asks is that his roommate wear a walrus costume (he’s obviously missed his walrus pal) and act only like the animal. Somewhere along the way, the film takes a darker turn.”
Here’s some extracts from the EW interview:
“Justin Long is the guy in the walrus suit.” states Smith “I needed a guy who has expressive eyes because once you’re in that suit, you’re covered. I reached out to Justin and he wrote back and was like, “This is awfully scary but how can we not? Let’s fall down this hole.”
He continues:
“I think Tusk will be an ivory bridge, if you will, to ‘Clerks III.’ I finished up the script [for ‘Clerks’] in May or June, but the timetable is pretty tough because the budget is larger. ‘Tusk’ is a moveable feast at like $2 million and change, so it was way more nimble to put that together. Tusk was just something to do while waiting for news back on ‘Clerks III.’ Suddenly, people were like, “Really? A human walrus? That sounds fucked up.” It suddenly took pole position. Then I started going, “Look, I do this, it’s going to make ‘Clerks III’ even easier to do. I can warm up for ‘Clerks III.’ It’s been a couple of years. Maybe I need some warmup pitches. But you definitely will see ‘Tusk’ before you’ll see ‘Clerks III.’ And if I have my way, you’ll see ‘Tusk’ up in Sundance in January.”
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