EXCLUSIVE: Mark Duplass continues to branch out as an actor beyond his DIY indie roots with two new projects, even as he and brother Jay keep building their joint TV and film portfolio. The Safety Not Guaranteed star has signed on for Universal and Blumhouse‘s Mercy, a fantasy-horror project based on a short from Stephen King’s Skeleton Crew collection that stars Dylan McDermott, Frances O’Connor, Chandler Riggs, Joel Courtney, Shirley Knight and Chris Browning. Peter Cornwell (A Haunting In Connecticut) is directing, with Jason Blum, McG, and Wonderland Sound and Vision’s Mary Viola producing. Matt Greenberg wrote the script from King’s short story Gramma, about two young boys who visit their grandmother and discover she’s a witch.
The busy Duplass has also been cast in Open Road’s Parkland as Kenny O’Donnell, campaign advisor and close confidant to John F. Kennedy. The ensemble pic follows the scene at Parkland Hospital in Dallas in the hours following JFK’s assassination on November 22, 1963. Duplass joins Paul Giamatti, Zac Efron, Billy Bob Thornton, and Smallville‘s Tom Welling in the indie drama written and directed by Peter Landesman and adapted from Vincent Bugliosi’s book Reclaiming History: The Assassination Of President John F. Kennedy.
Duplass recently appeared in Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar-nominated Zero Dark Thirty and is set to star in Peachfuzz for Blumhouse, which he’ll also produce with Jay Duplass. The brothers will also write, direct, and produce Togetherness, a single camera comedy pilot for HBO. Duplass is repped by ICM.
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