Now that he’s gearing up to start shooting on the Footloose remake, Craig Brewer has hired another actor to fill one of the central roles, with Andie MacDowell signing on to play the wife of Dennis Quaid’s reverend.
Quaid’s character, of course, is the music-loathing religious type who is disgusted with the arrival of rebel hoofer Ren McCormack (Kenny Wormald), who is sending his tightly repressed small town into spasms of dancing delight. And he’s even less pleased when his daughter Ariel (Julianne Hough) falls for Ren. Ariel, huh? Not a terribly Biblical name for a preacher's daughter. More, y'know, Disney's Little Mermaid.
McDowell is taking over a role played by Diane Wiest in the original, the much quieter Vi Moore.
Footloose hasn’t exactly enjoyed the easiest road to production so far – both Zac Efron and Chace Crawford have dropped out of the lead at different points in its development, and the film has been through at least one other director in Kenny Ortega, who left at the same time as Efron. Let's hope things go more smoothly from here on, and that no one gives MacDowell a line like, "Is it still raining? I hadn't noticed."