Lizard Music cast adds Alicia Silverstone and Tim Heidecker
Alicia Silverstone and Tim Heidecker have joined Benny Safdie’s Lizard Music, with Dwayne Johnson already aboard as star and producer.
By Bianca Rossi · Entertainment Editor
2 min read
Alicia Silverstone and Tim Heidecker have joined the Lizard Music cast, adding two new names to Benny Safdie’s live-action and CGI adaptation of Daniel Pinkwater’s novel, Deadline reported.
Details on their roles are being kept quiet, according to Deadline. The film already has 10-year-old Theo Clark Leber in the lead role, with Dwayne Johnson starring opposite him and also producing.
Safdie wrote the screenplay for the project, Deadline reported. The story centers on a boy, played by Leber, who is left on his own and discovers a mysterious late-night broadcast featuring lizards making strange music.
That discovery leads him toward a bigger mystery and to an oddball older man known as The Chicken Man, played by Johnson. The Chicken Man has a cherished companion: Claudia, a 111-year-old chicken.
What is Lizard Music about?
Lizard Music is based on Daniel Pinkwater’s novel and follows a boy whose late-night discovery opens the door to a hidden world. In the film version described by Deadline, the boy’s search leads to The Chicken Man, Claudia, and an adventure tied to a secret society, unseen worlds and unexpected connections.
The movie is being made as a live-action and CGI hybrid, a format that fits a story involving musical lizards, a century-old chicken and a hidden realm just out of sight.
The producing team includes Scott Stuber and Nick Nesbitt for UA, Safdie through Out for the Count Productions, Johnson through Seven Bucks Productions, and David Koplan for Magnetic Fields Entertainment, according to Deadline.
Silverstone, an Emmy and Golden Globe nominee, comes to the project after recent credits including Yorgos Lanthimos’ Academy Award-nominated Bugonia, Netflix’s A Merry Little Ex-Mas, which she also executive produced, and the erotic thriller Pretty Thing with Karl Glusman, Deadline reported.
She is represented by UTA, Untitled and Gang, Tyre, Ramer, according to Deadline.
Heidecker recently teamed with The Onion in a takeover and parody-site reimagining of Alex Jones’ Infowars, Deadline reported. He also stars with Gregg Turkington in the web series On Cinema.
His recent screen work includes the horror film Him, in which he appears alongside Marlon Wayans and Tyriq Withers. Deadline reported that Heidecker is represented by UTA.
The casting keeps Safdie’s project moving into sharper focus, even while the new roles for Silverstone and Heidecker remain under wraps. With Johnson as The Chicken Man and Leber leading the story, Lizard Music is shaping up as a curious, family-skewing adventure with a very specific kind of weird at its center.
This story draws on original reporting from Deadline.