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The Filmmakers Who Cast A CGI James Dean Actually Wanted CGI Elvis

Photo credit: John Springer Collection - Getty Images
Photo credit: John Springer Collection - Getty Images

From Esquire

You'll recall that a couple of weeks ago James Dean's digital resurrection for the upcoming Vietnam drama Finding Jack got quite a mixed response from the acting community. Some hated it; others just found it deeply strange. Nobody liked it.

It turns out that despite assurances that this absolutely isn't a stunt, and that CGI Jimmy Dean was the only man they could imagine playing the role despite having been dead for 64 years, he wasn't even the first name on their list of candidates.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the filmmakers were knocked back by Elvis Presley's estate before turning to Dean's. This is presumably young, sexy, Jailhouse Rock Elvis, rather than sad, rambling, tanked-up-to-the-gills Vegas Elvis.

To be fair, Presley would have made some sort of sense. The central plot of Finding Jack – a marine in 'Nam goes back into the jungle to find his beloved military dog – does sound a bit like one of Presley's early Sixties films, where he sings songs to horses and that sort of thing. As director Anton Ernst pointed out, Presley was also actually "in the Army".

Ernst added that the team briefly considered casting a CGI Paul Newman opposite CGI James Dean, and that the task of casting someone opposite a non-corporeal being with an almost unlimited acting mythos is "a good challenge: can they outshine James Dean? You’re going to need someone with big balls."

But still, the question remains: eh? How far down were they going to go down their big list of famous American men of the 1950s before they decided to cast a living human being? CGI Allen Ginsberg? CGI Big Bopper? CGI Harry Truman?

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