QT Casting Eli Roth and Britney Spears in Things
Variety is reporting that Quentin Tarantino's pal Eli Roth is up for the role of a "baseball bat-swinging Nazi hunter" in Inglorious Bastards, and, in more what the eff territory, always-trustworthy "sources" are saying Britney Spears is in talks to play a lesbian stripper in QT's remake of Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! From the more interesting story:
Spears' character murders the boyfriend with her bare hands before taking the girlfriend hostage. The troubled singer will also have sex scenes with another girl before the drama ends in a blood-bath. Tarantino is in discussions with other Hollywood stars to take the roles of the remaining two strippers. A source said: "Quentin is convinced Britney will be brilliant. She's delighted. She thinks it could turn her career around.
Back in the Pulp Fiction days, Tarantino became sort of known for his ability to revive a dying career when he cast John Travolta in a lead role, but this is a whole new level of joke career he's dealing with. In 1994, Travolta was surprising because he'd been doing almost nothing but TV movies and Look Who's Talkings for years prior. Seeing him as Vincent Vega, it was believable because he'd been such a non-presence for so long that you could forget it was John Travolta. Casting Britney Spears doesn't work that way. It's like casting current John Travolta, aggravatingly prominent in the public eye because he's a nutcase. No matter what role she takes, there's no way to forget or forgive you're looking at Britney Spears. Maybe I'll be proved wrong, but the best case scenario I can see is leaving the theater thinking, "Wow, she really took me back to the time when it would have been shocking and/or desirable to see her as a stripping lesbian."