James Caan Not Co-Starring After All in Fox's Comedy Pilot ‘Fantasy Life’
Barely three days had passed since James Caan signed on to co-star in the Fox's new pilot Fantasy Life, a sitcom series based on the memoirs of Matthew Berry, 45, one of the industry's leading and in-demand fantasy sports experts, he is reportedly backing out. According to Deadline, the 74-year-old actor decided to drop out of the project following today's table read because it conflicted with his schedule for Frank D'Angelo's Sicilian Vampire.
Sicilian Vampire, a movie written and directed by Frank D'Angelo, will have Caan co-starring with Paul Sorvino, Darryl Hannah, Robert Loggia, Michael Madsen, Daniel Baldwin, Franco Nero, Eric Roberts, Michael Paré, Tony Nardi and Phil Esposito. Production is already scheduled to start later this month in Toronto, Canada.
For Fantasy Life, Tim McAuliffe is penning the screenplay for the TV adaptation of Berry's vast writings both on the subject of fantasy sports and on his own experience as a TV fantasy sports analyst. Leading the cast is Kevin Connolly, 41, who plays the role of Mitch, described as a hard-working guy who lands his ultimate dream job of hosting a fantasy football show. While becoming the star he never thought he could be, he finds himself forced to navigate office politics. Vanessa Williams, 51, is set to portray Mitch's new boss Terry, the abrasive but compassionate SVP of Programming at the sports network.
Also confirmed in the cast are Chaz Lamar Shepherd who plays professional football player and show analyst dubbed 'MC2,' Kimberly Crossman who portrays the network president's daughter Summer Dale, and Utkarsh Ambudkar in a still undisclosed role.
Caan's previously announced character, that of Chuck, is now being re-cast. As described, Chuck is a tough and humorless ex-legendary football player/coach who's on Mitch's new team working on a major sports network's fantasy football league show. Chuck doesn't get fantasy football since he only played real football and for which he suffered real pain. However, Mitch eventually impresses him, so much so that he eventually learns to feel comfortable working with him.
Connolly in addition to starring will also executive produce the project along with Berry, McAuliffe and Michael Rotenberg, Jonathan Berry, Greg Walter and Troy Zien of 3 Arts.
Caan's Back in the Game TV show where he co-starred with Maggie Lawson was pulled off by Fox after airing just 10 of 13 planned episodes for the pilot season. The remaining three episodes were subsequently released by the network on iTunes, Amazon and other streaming services. Despite generally positive reviews from the critics, the show failed to attract enough viewers to warrant continuation of the series.