Wahlberg, Franco, and More Agree to ‘Date Night’

Published by Jeff Leins on: April 13th, 2009

A long list of solid actors have signed for supporting roles in the Steve Carell and Tiny Fey comedy Date Night.  My Thursday night TV favorites will play a married couple who find themselves in danger when their routine night out goes horribly wrong.  Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum) is directing.

According to Variety, Mark Wahlberg plays “a successful and crazily buff securities expert” who flirts with Fey’s character.  Yes, they just used the phrase crazily buff in Variety.  The Hollywood Reporter version of the story adds that his character is in private security, has dealt with black ops, and offers to help the couple.  James Franco has also signed up and he will portray a dumb con man and petty criminal.  I’m still not the biggest fan of Marky Mark, but Franco rules.

But that’s not all.  Leighton Meester (Blair on “Gossip Girls”) is their babysitter in the movie, Taraji P. Henson (the Oscar-nominated mother of Benjamin Button) is the only cop who believes they’re in trouble, rapper-turned-actor Common plays a villain, and finally my other favorite female “SNL” vet, Kristen Wiig, plays Fey’s best friend.

When they asked Levy how he was able to get such great talent for his comedy, he said he already had Carell and Fey, so he aimed high to “populate every supporting role with formidable actors.”  Levy must have some tricks because he assembled quite the cast for Night at the Museum: Battle at the Smithsonian too.

“And people just kept saying yes,” added Levy. “I think people just really wanted to work with Tina and Steve.”

While it would be awesome to work with those two, I think people are always interested in a comedy that is actually funny.  This many people hopping on board must mean there’s something about this script, so that’s a good sign.  I’m looking forward to this one.