Thus far the casting for the Tom Cruise vehicle One Shot has been respectable but not terribly thrilling. Richard Jenkins, Rosamund Pike, Robert Duvall and David Oyelowo have all signed on to supporting roles in the film, which finds Cruise as the traveling vigilante Jack Reacher trying to solve a sniper case in a western Pennsylvania town. But now director Christopher McQuarrie has made a casting decision that's a complete game changer. He has cast Werner Herzog as the movie's villain.

Yes, Werner Herzog, the director of documentaries like Grizzly Man and Cave of Forgotten Dreams, who famously considered murdering his star Klaus Kinski while shooting Fitzcarraldo in the jungle, who ate his shoe after losing a bet and filmed it, who was shot by an air rifle during an interview then kept going, commenting "it is not a significant bullet." Herzog is both one of the most significant cinema artists currently alive, and also one of the scariest human beings imaginable; of course he's the right guy to play the guy who's terrorizing Tom Cruise. According to Variety, which broke the news, Herzog's role is a bit more complicated than simply playing the sniper. Here's their description of the role:

Herzog will play The Zec, an ex-prisoner of war who arranges and stages the killing and is the head of the conspiracy. Par had no comment on the casting.

Um, yes indeed. I will watch that, and it doesn't even matter to me that Herzog barely has any acting experience-- unless you count appearances in movies like The Grand or his incredible voiceover work in Rahmin Bahrani's incredible short "Plastic Bag." In fact, let's watch that below to celebrate this, the best casting decision you'll probably hear about this week.