Perhaps the dismal opening weekend for "Jonah Hex" is because film fans don't know Luke Duke from the "Dukes of Hazzard" makes a feisty cameo.
Now that's sure to bring some folks from Hazzard country running to the multi-plex.
Tom Wopat plays Colonel Slocum in a "Hex" scene set around a Western version of a caged fighting match. If you didn't recognize him, well, the filmmakers almost didn't as well.
The quietly mega-successful Broadway actor/singer showed up to audition without warning or fanfare.
"We actually read Tom Wopat in New York and didn't even know it was Tom Wopat," said director Jimmy Hayward. "We were like, 'Is that one of the Duke boys?' He just kind of came in and read for us."
"We didn't know it was him until afterwards."
Producer Andrew Lazar said they were so impressed with Wopat, that they took him on and made his character -- originally a peg-legged guy -- something of a tough guy villain.
"When Tom came in and read it, it was like, 'Wow!,' " said Lazar. "If he's dangerous and really formidable, it really creates another dimension."
To vaguely quote the "Hazzard" song, the mountains are far from getting Wopat. But the snake-man fighter he was tossed in the ring with in the "Hex" scene certainly did. But if Bo Duke had been there to help out it would have been a different story.
