Tweet

Heat Vision is reporting today that Sam Rockwell will be joining the cast of Jon Favreau’s Cowboys and Aliens as a supporting character. Rockwell will be playing a bar owner named Doc who joins in the fight of the aliens. Apparently the role originally called for a heavy set man but once Favreau and the writers (Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Damon Lindelof) learned of Rockwell’s interest in the part they retooled and expanded the role accordingly. Rockwell will be joining an already solid line up of actors: Daniel Craig, Olivia Wilde, and Harrison Ford. This will be the second straight project in which Favreau has cast Rockwell, the first being the hotly anticipated Iron Man 2 in which he plays Justin Hammer, seemingly one of many, many villains in the film.

For those not in the know, Cowboys and Aliens is based on a graphic novel that is exactly what you think it is: cowboys and Indians are forced to team up to fight a greater alien enemy. As someone who has read the comic, I can tell you it’s fun enough material and that Favreau should be quite capable of making into an entertaining popcorn flick. My only problem with the comic is that the aliens are aggressively unimaginative looking. Someone really phoned it in so here’s hoping they don’t stick to the source material on that front. With Rockwell now on board, things are looking quite good for this film to be good. The only dubious element for me is the involvement of Orci and Kurtzman who can be either really awesome (Star Trek, Mission Impossible III) or really really bad (Transformers 1 and 2).

What do you think of Sam Rockwell joining Cowboys and Aliens?