After he finished Cop Out, it was assumed that Kevin Smith’s next movie would be Hit Somebody, a hockey comedy starring Seann William Scott. However after three years of trying, Smith finally got the money to make his ‘horror’ movie, Red State, and decided to slot that in first.
The result was that rather than waiting or making something completely different in the meantime, Seann William Scott decided to sign up to star in a completely different hockey tale, Goon, which rather ruled him out of appearing in Hit Somebody. So who’s going to take his place? Well, you’d assume they’d want a known name, but Smith has other ideas.
The director announced the new lead during his Hollywood Babble-On podcast, and here’s what he had to say: ‘At one point it was Seann William Scott, and Seann William Scott apparently wanted to make a hockey movie real fuckin bad So he went to do another one, which meant we were star-less for a while, which was totally OK by me. But then I found so much of my Hit Somebody cast while making Red State, so The guy whos going to play my lead, whose name is Buddy McKraken in the movie, is a fella whos in our flick [Red State] and his name is Nicholas Braun. Hes this really great actor who I love to death and he is the perfect lead for this hockey movie, for this script, which is based on this Warren Zevon song,’
Nicholas who? Well the 22-year-old has appeared in the likes of Sky High and the 10 Things I Hate About You TV series, but he’s far from being a known name. Perhaps Hit Somebody can break him into the big time, but you’ve got to imagine the people bankrolling the film will be a little worried that Smith has gone with somebody relatively obscure.