C. Thomas Howell has added one more credit to his incredibly busy 2012 slate. Variety reports the omnipresent character actor, who recently wrapped on The Amazing Spider-Man along with five other films expected to come out this year, has just signed on to writer-director Cole Mueller's crime drama Magic Hour. Howell, whose been working as an actor since age 7, joins of cast filled with newcomers and up-and-coming performers that includes: Trevor Morgan, Kris Lemche, Josh Emerson, Courtney Daniels, Kevin McNamara and Mark Alan. Also lined up for Magic Hour is William Russ, who may be best known as the loving father on Boy Meets World.
Magic Hour will be Mueller's sophomore effort, following the con artist-centered thriller Green Guys, which also starred Lemche and Russ. This time around, Mueller's script is not focusing on flim-flam men but rather zeroing in on the rise and fall of a young man who is lured into the seductive but dangerous grips of a thriving crime family in 1990s Venice Beach. It's a setting ripe for intrigue and devil-may-care characters, yet details on what roles Howell and co-stars will play are being kept under lock in key. With no indication on who'll play the lead, it's impossible to postulate what role Howell will fill, but I'd wager a guess that Russ may be continuing to play against the niche he forged with years of family-friendly sitcom antics. He was wonderfully revolting as the caddish dad/gambler Otis Russell on his brief but memorable stint on HBO's gritty Western drama Deadwood. So, personally, I'm pulling for him to play smug and merciless villain.
Magic Hour is currently in production—shooting in Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, and Anaheim—with an expectation to wrap by month's end.
