Timberlake Hits the Big Screen

By Ellen Thompson, Copy Editor

The journalism genre of films is about to get a taste of grade-A pop music- minus the lyrics and beats.

Justin Timberlake, the worldwide pop icon, will be portraying Joshua Pollock, "a fresh-out-of college kid with a counterculture bent," in the upcoming film "Edison," according to MTV.com.

Timberlake is the latest spectacle to join the Hollywood circus of musicians turned actors. If his early days in "The New Mickey Mouse Club" weren't enough preparation for his big screen debut Timberlake can get tips from LL Cool J, fellow musician and "Edison" co-star.

Cool J ("Krush Groove," "Deep Blue Sea," "Any Given Sunday") will be playing "a member of an elite unit of policemen, who is conflicted about joining the rouge cops in their practices," according to a MTV source.

Jimmy Olsen, friend of Superman, was the initial role Timberlake had his dreamy blue eyes set on for in the impending movie "Superman," but "that film still has no director or star," music journalist Jennifer Vineyard wrote, leaving him to swoop up the starring role in "Edison."

The film, David Burke's feature writing and directing debut, is a crime drama where the baby-faced journalist gets a taste of big city print reporting via an internship and then movies onto a community weekly paper, where he uncovers corruption within the city's law enforcement realm.

According to a February press release for the film, Timberlake's character "allies" with a burn-out Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, played by Morgan Freeman, and the city D.A.'s supreme investigator, played by Kevin Spacey, to muckrake and punish the dishonest.

" Edison' is an exciting project with an excellent cast," John Thompson, a producer from Millennium Films, which is producing "Edison", said in the film's press release.

Filming began this month in Vancouver, Canada. "The city of Vancouver offers the perfect setting for our story to unfold and we're all very happy to be filming here," Thompson said.

Dylan McDermott ("The Practice") and Piper Perabo ("Coyote Ugly", "Cheaper by the Dozen") are among the star-studded $25 million-budgeted film.

The film is planned to be released in 2005 and then it will be decided if Timberlake is "justified" as an actor.