The strangest film of 2012 has added some serious acting muscle, as Liam Neeson has signed on to serve as admiral in "Battleship."
Neeson will play "Admiral Shane, the Naval officer whose daughter (played by Brooklyn Decker) is engaged to a young naval officer played by Taylor Kitsch," reported Deadline. The film is being directed by Peter Berg, and is based on the beloved boardgame.
It's been an up-and-down year for Neeson, whose already starred in the almost-good psycho-sexual thriller "Chloe," the epic mess that was "Clash of the Titans," the dumb-but-fun "The A-Team" and the nobody-saw-it "After.Life." OK, so it's been mostly a down year.
Fortunately, "Battleship" appears to be a bit more than two players blindly guess as to the whereabouts of their opponents' armada. It seems that screenwriters Eric and Jon Hoeber (the hotly anticipated "Red") have added "alien invasion" angle to the story.
In addition to Neeson, Kitsch and Decker, the cast also includes Alexander Skarsgård who served so nobly in "Generation Kill," Rihanna making her acting debut, Tom Arnold who sailed aboard "McHale's Navy" 13 years ago, an obscure rapper named Lil Mirkk and Hamish Linklater, best known for his role as Julia Louise-Dreyfus' brother on "The New Adventures of Old Christine." That's a weird cast, right?
And the whole thing will only cost about $200 million.
