It’s always interesting to see where an actor goes after they get license to have the words “Oscar nominee” or “Oscar winner” attached to their name on a movie poster.
Nicolas Cage is a great example — one minute he’s poisoning his liver and shacking up with the darkest timeline version of Chris Parker from Adventures in Babysitting in Leaving Las Vegas, and the next he’s saving the world from super-toxic bath beads in The Rock.
Now that Michael Keaton is on top of the world for his Oscar nominated performance in Birdman, all eyes are on what his next move will be. Personally, I’m holding out hope for more Batman, but for now, it seems like the life and times of McDonalds visionary Ray Kroc may seem more tantalizing a choice for Keaton.
According to THR, Keaton is in talks to play Kroc in a film about his rise to power at the one-time family run burger chain. But this doesn’t sound like it’s going to be a sepia-toned bio-pic.
Written by Robert Siegel (Big Fan), The Founder is a drama that tells the true story of how Ray Kroc, a salesman from Illinois, met Mac and Dick McDonald, who were running a burger operation in 1950s Southern California. Kroc was impressed by the brothers’ speedy system of making the food and saw franchise potential. He maneuvered himself into a position to be able to pull the company from the brothers and create a billion-dollar empire.
The tone of the script has been described as being akin to The Social Network and There Will Be Blood.
I wish I could remember the name of it, but I saw a documentary about the McDonalds origin story and Kroc’s ascension does seem like it would make for a pretty interesting film. And while I don’t know anything about Ray Kroc the person, I know that I can absolutely see Michael Keaton as a smiling burger huckster with a master plan if that’s the way they go with the role and the casting.
If this happens, though, it absolutely sounds like the kind of role that could put Keaton back in the awards season winner’s circle again. And the way I see it, the world still owes Michael Keaton a debt for his Johnny Dangerously snub, so keep em coming.
Via THR
