If you were wondering – like Empire was, just the other day, in fact – where the hell Billy Crystal had gotten to, worry no longer: for the comedian has just signed on to star alongside John ‘The Rock’ Sondwayne in The Tooth Fairy.
The 20th Century Fox comedy, in which The Rock will play a hockey player who is forced to become a real tooth fairy for one week, will mark Crystal’s first foray in front of the camera since 2002’s Analyse That. (He’s done voice work since then.)
Where’s he been? No idea. What’s he been doing? Can he really have been licking his wounds for six years? Come on, Analyse That was bad, but not that bad. But he’s back and that’s the main thing.
And, continuing the theme of general ignorance on Crystal-related matters, we have no idea who he’s playing in The Tooth Fairy. In our defence, though, that information hasn’t yet been released – but we’re prepared to take a wild guess and say that he’ll play someone in the Tooth Fairy organisation, as that should give him plenty of room to bring the funny.
Crystal’s addition to the Michael Lembeck-directed comedy caps what was already a fine cast for a family film: he joins The Rock, Ashley Judd, Stephen Merchant and Dame Julie Andrews.
We were about to speculate that Crystal might have been drawn in by the fact that his old mockers Babaloo Mandel and Lowell Ganz – who’ve written no fewer than five films for Crystal, including City Slickers – had written the script. But the news that Randi Mayem Singer has penned the latest draft might put an end to that little theory.
Filming on the movie begins on Monday in sunny Vancouver.