Sadly, one of those faces apparently will NOT be the Cash to Sly’s Tango — Kurt Russell was approached for the project and turned it down. Or at least an attempt was made, but whether it even got to Russell’s ocular/auditory organs remains a question.
As Stallone says (via StalloneZone): “I know that many people on the site have asked for Kurt Russell. I asked for him too. Actually, I was taken aback when asked to put the request in a letter and send it to his agent. Subsequently, I was called back by the agent several days later after refusing to send a letter and he said Kurt Russell is not interested in ‘ensemble acting’ at this time. So, People, I came, I saw, I failed.”
Now, if that said he wasn’t interested in ‘ensemble acting’ since POSEIDON turned out to be a colossal floating turd, that might seem more believable. But Russell’s recent films have found him as a colorful background character in SKY HIGH, playing off a horse (and Dakota Fanning) in DREAMER, and getting about 15 minutes of screentime in GRINDHOUSE, so it seems like less of a hubris issue on Russell’s part and more like agent cockblocking. But who knows?
Either way, it’s quite a pisser that such an iconic genre actor won’t be part of Sly’s action (not that it isn’t already overflowing with awesome).