Morgan Freeman was already a bit too old to play Alex Cross – the iconic James Patterson detective – in Kiss The Girls and Along Came a Spider, but he was still Morgan Freeman. You don’t turn that man down, and the job he did was more than capable. Now, QED wants to bring back the character to the big screen. At one point, Idris Elba was in the starring seat. Now, it’s Tyler Perry, who can’t even be described as the poor man’s Idris Elba.
Perry will play the master psychologist for I, Alex Cross – based off the novel of the same name. According to Deadline Lincoln, distributors are currently being sought out, and Paramount (who released the other Cross flicks) might be interested.
To say this is terrible casting is understatement. Cross is a terribly complex character – compassionate yet tough, an intellectual giant who self-imposes a life of solitude while also managing to volunteer in one of the poorest communities in DC. So far, Perry just hasn’t shown the depth to bring this character to life. There’s also always that tiny fraction of a possibility that it turns into Alex Cross-dress.
Jokes aside, Tyler Perry is no Morgan Freeman. He’s also no Idris Elba, and it’s a damned shame that we won’t get to see the Elba version of Alex Cross. Perry will have to have a lot of surprises up his sleeve that he hasn’t tapped into yet in order to pull this off.
