It’s been about six years since celebrated actor Jack Nicholson was seen in anything new, and judging by all accounts, The Shining star had retired to enjoy his twilight years away from the rat race. While that may have been Jack’s intention in 2010, it seems an exciting new project has enticed Nicholson out of retirement. The Batman star is teaming up for a re-adaptation of Toni Erdmann for Paramount Pictures. While this may just be a one-time deal, the mere thought of seeing Jack Nicholson back in action gives his fans a gift that might have once seemed like an impossibility.
Toni Erdmann Reboot Draws Jack Nicholson Out Of Retirement
Earlier today, Variety reported that Paramount Pictures had secured the rights to produce an English language version of Toni Erdmann , which was released last year as a German language comedy. Toni Erdmann tells the story of a practical joking family man seeking to reconnect with his workaholic daughter. He devises a plot to bond with his serious adult daughter by posing as her CEO’s life coach.
It has now been revealed that Jack Nicholson has been tapped to play the father with Kristen Wiig ( Ghostbusters, The Martian ) set to play the daughter.
The premise of Toni Erdmann is not all that dissimilar from Nicholson’s previous comedic hit, Anger Management (2003), in which he played Adam Sandler’s meddlesome therapist.
Never one to be nailed down into one genre, Jack has crossed lines throughout his career, traversing the Hollywood landscape to star in everything from westerns, like 1966’s The Shooting , to playing in dramas, such as playing R.P. McMurphy in the 1975 film adaptation of Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest .
More recently, Nicholson last appeared on the screen in the rom-com How Do You Know (2010) and, prior to that, starred in the docudrama I’m Still Here , also released in 2010.
While Nicholson may be more memorable as a victim-turned-villain in both The Shining (1980) and Batman (1989), Jack has proven himself adept at delivering his own unique brand of sarcastic humor, which forces laughter from audiences with little effort.
Playing opposite Kristen Wiig, Jack Nicholson as a good-natured father in Toni Erdmann is something the veteran actor’s fans can look forward to with baited breath.
Jack Nicholson’s Retired With Little Fanfare
After his last films in 2010, Nicholson quietly slipped away from the limelight, reports CBS News . His departure was so quiet that few even realized he had stepped away from acting, until news of his return for the Toni Erdmann reboot brought attention to Jack’s absence. Now, as his fans recognize the source of that empty feeling in the pits of their stomachs, the idea of Nicholson starring in Toni Erdmann becomes the gift we didn’t know we needed.
While most of us merely assumed that Jack had retired, the actor’s long-time friend and fellow actor Peter Fonda had previously stated that Nicholson’s retirement was a certainty. Fonda and Nicholson appeared together in the 1969 film Easy Rider and have remained friends to this day.
“I think he is basically retired. I don’t want to speak for him, but he has done a lot of work and he has done very well as a person financially,” Fonda said at this year’s BAFTA Tea Party in L.A.
Fonda hints that, if there is a medical reason Nicholson stepped away from Hollywood, it’s not information to which he is privy. The Easy Rider actor says he does check in on Nicholson, but doesn’t pry.
“Sometimes people have a reason that you don’t know, and it’s not for me to ask. I don’t call him up and say, ‘Johnny’ — I call him Johnny Hop — ‘What are you doing?’ I would say, ‘How are you, how do you feel?’”
[Featured Image by Kevin Winter/Getty Images]