Twitter is no stranger to fan casting campaigns. Many of them tweet out their dream castings in hopes that their favorite actor or actress gets cast for the perfect role. Let’s be honest, rarely do these campaigns work and most of the time they don’t. And even though it is not up to us, social media doesn’t stop us from voicing our dream castings 140 characters at a time.
But for Book of Eli and Star Wars scribe Gary Whitta, he isn’t tweeting his dream choice for his proposed Columbo, he is making a pitch to Avengers star Mark Ruffalo to star as the titular Columbo, who was originally played by the great Peter Falk, in a proposed film. Here’s the thing, Ruffalo is actually already in talks to appear in an adaptation. Hit the jump to read the full twitter conversation.
While fans and a couple of Hollywood execs had their say about Whitta’s dream casting, it didn’t get interesting until Ruffalo himself got into the conversation.
Woke up this morning still thinking about @MarkRuffalo as new Columbo. How is this not already a thing? #Ruffacolumbo pic.twitter.com/Vl8heHmGve
— Gary Whitta (@garywhitta) July 15, 2014
Oh hey, @MarkRuffalo and I are both repped by UTA. Which means I’m about 0.00001% closer to getting this done. #Columbo
— Gary Whitta (@garywhitta) July 16, 2014
@garywhitta LOL. I have been working on it!
— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) July 15, 2014
It’s clear that MysteryExec would like to have some form of anonymity and probably knows a little more about the project than we do. But what seems to be strange is that there may be two Columbo projects going on, but more on that a bit later.
@MysteryExec @garywhitta Ed Soloman approached me on this about a month ago. We are thinking a movie.
— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) July 16, 2014
@garywhitta It seems Universal has it and is already developing a TV show. Boo hoo.
— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) July 16, 2014
And there it is. Universal is already working on a Columbo TV show. But fear not, Whitta and Ruffalo won’t let something like a TV series stop them, for they think a feature that leads into the series could work, if they can work out a deal with Universal that is:
@MarkRuffalo Yeah, I’ve had calls into my agents on it for a while, heard nothing back. What about a feature that tees up a TV version?
— Gary Whitta (@garywhitta) July 16, 2014
@garywhitta That’s an idea. Ed Solomon pitched the movie idea to me about a month ago. Does universal have an appetite for it is the ?.
— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) July 16, 2014
This is why social media is such a wonderful place. It is a venue to which everyone can see ideas form, or in this case, studio execs can gauge the interest of the audience on whether or not a Columbo film or TV series can work. I loved watching Columbo as a kid, Peter Falk had this presence as a disheveled chatty persistent detective, and I think Ruffalo would be a great fit.
But the important thing to get from all of this is that with people already voicing their approval of Ruffalo as Columbo, Universal now has an idea of who they should cast if they want to get a Columbo series made.