James Van Der Beek is officially on the comeback trail. He's currently starring in the well reviewed comedy The B***h in Apartment 23 on ABC, and is now in negotiations to join the cast of Labor Day, Jason Reitman’s latest project, says The Hollywood Reporter.
Reitman is coming off of another well received drama, Young Adult, and is continuing to make the projects that he wants to make - as opposed to boarding a big budgeted studio feature. This one has already set Josh Brolin and Kate Winslet to star, and is centres on a boy and his reclusive, divorced mother (Winslet) who, during a Labor Day Weekend, meets a stranger (Brolin) and offer him a ride. The man turns out to be an escaped convict and ends up teaching the boy life lessons. Which is always nice. The man formally known as Dawson will play a police officer investigating a missing person's case.
Van Der Beek shone in the criminally underrated Rules of Attraction, and has never been given the chance to do so again in a major Hollywood feature. He's successfully taken the piss out of himself and his typecasting, which Hollywood always loves. I hope this role is a big one for him.
