“Imagine all the people.... starring in this film...You-hoooo.” You may say that’s a pretty terrible John Lennon impersonation... and you would be right, but bear with us. Dan Fogelman’s long-in-the-works directorial debut Imagine is finally getting some legs beneath it after a switch from studio film to indie film, and it’s attracting an audience-friendly cast that just keeps growing.
Just recently, Annette Bening signed on to join Al Pacino in this offbeat drama, and now Deadline is reporting Jennifer Garner and Sir Michael Caine have also joined the cast. The film was originally set up to be a Steve Carrell film, but I can’t help but think this cast has already topped whatever studio casting would have followed Carrell. All of our lucky stars have already been thanked that Bening is Pacino’s love interest and not Garner.
Unlike Pacino, Caine’s career has been on point recently, following director Christopher Nolan for most of his films, including Nolan’s next project, the space epic Interstellar. But he’ll next be seen in Louis Leterrier’s magician heist flick Now You See Me and Sandra Nettelbeck’s romantic drama Mr. Morgan’s Last Love. He also joined Brad Anderson’s next thriller Eliza Graves last month.
Meanwhile, Garner’s career isn’t quite so busy, having last appeared in Peter Hedges’ The Odd Life of Timothy Green. She has the AIDS drama The Dallas Buyers Club next on her schedule, and she’s currently filming Ivan Reitman’s Draft Day with Kevin Costner.
Based on a true story, Imagine centers on Pacino as an aging rock star who finds a letter that John Lennon wrote to him when he was 19 and decides to change his life for the better. Bobby Cannavale is playing Pacino’s estranged son, and Garner is set to play Pacino’s daughter-in-law, though it doesn’t say if she and Cannavale are the married couple. Caine will play Pacino’s longtime friend and manager. Honestly, watching Caine and Pacino eat up screentime together would get me into this film more than any other aspect.
Imagine is set to begin filming in L.A. in late June or early July.
