While quite a few Canadians have made it big (Ryan Reynolds, William Shatner, Michael J. Fox), once they’ve gone Hollywood, you’d never know their roots lay north of the border. However Jay Baruchel has stayed endearingly close to his Canadian motherland, and now he’s even signed on to star in a movie that’ll teach us all about the Vancouver punk rock scene – a subject audiences have been itching to get info on for years!
Variety reports Baruchel will play the lead in The Rebel Kind, based on the memoirs by The Modernettes frontman Buck Cherry (aka John Armstrong). The movie will center on the emerging punk rock scene in Vancouver during the 1980s and will be seen from the point of view of a band that just can’t seem to make it. The project is being written and directed by Reg Harkema, who has directed multiple projects, but also recently worked as an editor on Goon, the upcoming hockey comedy which was written by and stars Baruchel.
Producer Kevin Eastwood, “A lot of people don’t realize that Vancouver was a huge hotbed of musical activity in the early 80s. At the time, Vancouver was one of the three axis points of the universe — there was London, New York — and then there was Vancouver.” Hmm, we’ll reserve the right to be a little sceptical of that. There’s no news on when the movie might shoot.