A movie that depicts OJ Simpson as innocent of murder is in development, although it seems that they’re having a hard time finding a star actor who wants to play the role of attorney Douglas McCann, who got sucked into various conspiracy theories during Simpson’s 1995 criminal trial.
Director Joshua Newton told The Hollywood Reporter that Owen Wilson was offered $12 million for the role, and after saying “wow” a bunch of times (probably), declined to take stab at it:
“Owen Wilson was perfect for the role. I actually had a meeting with him in Santa Monica. Everybody loved the script. His agent wanted him to do it. We offered him $12 million. But at the end of the lunch, Owen stood up and said, ‘If you think I’m going to take the lead role in a movie about how O.J. didn’t do it, you’ve got to be kidding me.'”
Just trying to imagine this director pitching the movie to Owen Wilson: “so, we all know OJ Simpson murdered Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman, but… what if he didn’t?”.
Looks like $12 million wasn’t enough to tempt Owen Wilson into taking part, although I suppose he doesn’t need the money. Still, $12 million is a nice chunk of change for one movie role. All he had to do was play a conspiracy theorist attorney who believes OJ Simpson is innocent. Simple!
Yeah OK, he’d probably get a load of backlash over it, but would it be a career-ender? It’s not like one dodgy role would undo all the credit he has with Wedding Crashers and Zoolander, right?
What I really want to know is what kind of budget this movie is working with to be able to offer $12 million to a supporting role? And how crazy is it that they didn’t even wait for OJ’s body to turn cold before getting the ball rolling on this thing?
The film is titled “The Juice,” and stars Charlotte Kirk (The Reckoking) as Nicole Brown and Boris Kodjoe (Station 19) as OJ Simpson. Director Joshua Newton hopes that filming will be wrapped up by the end of October. Will be interesting to see who they manage to land in the role of Douglas McCann…
For the wild clip of OJ pretending to stab Ruby Wax as a “prank” during an interview, click HERE. What a guy.
