Kevin Smith Casts Genesis Rodriguez As Female Lead In TUSK

Kevin Smith’s Tusk is coming together awfully fast. The writer/director first announced that he was writing the project at the beginning of July and now just a few months later, he has secured financing, hired Justin Long and Michael Parks to head up the cast and has shooting slated to start next month in North Carolina. Variety is reporting that Smith has now added a third person to the cast – Identity Thief actress Genesis Rodriguez.

The story for the film grew out of a conversation Smith had on his podcast about a real-life ad that appeared in the British version of Craig’s List in which a man was looking to take on a boarder in his home, the only condition being that the person had to wear a walrus costume around the house for several hours a day. Smith at first mined the idea for some jokes before he started to wonder aloud if there wasn’t some sort of “21st century Hammer horror film” to be found in the premise.

According to Variety’s report, Smith has tweaked the story somewhat to incorporate the podcast origins of the project. The trade describes the movie’s plot as –

Story follows a podcaster who sets out to interview an eccentric, reclusive old seafarer, only to find himself a plaything in the gruesome plot of a deranged killer.

Long is set to play the podcaster and Parks to play the reclusive seafarer.

It is rather exciting to see how quickly Smith has managed to pull this project together, especially after his hockey film Hit Somebody has seemingly been languishing in development hell for sometime now. Hopefully, this is signaling a resurgence in Smith’s interest in making films, as he has indicated recently that his heart just hasn’t been in the process.