Finally! A Ramona movie!

Like practically every other woman in the country under 40, I grew up reading Beverly Cleary’s Ramona books. Well finally, Hollywood has stopped ignoring this mostly-untapped cultural resource. That’s right, a Ramona movie is in the works! It’s called Ramona and Beezus, the Beezus being Ramona’s sister Beatrice. It is set to come out on March 19th, 2010, so we’ve got a while to wait, but in the meantime we can pore over the casting and nitpick!

Now, the girl playing Ramona is some unknown girl named Joey King. No big surprise there. Then we have the extended family, and this is where it gets weird. Since when do people think it’s okay to cast early 20-somethings as parents? In the role of Ramona’s mother, we have Bridget Moynahan (Natasha in Sex and the City), and as her father…what the hell, John Corbett (Aidan in Sex and the City)?! Weird! See, Carrie dated Aidan at the same time Mr. Big was dating Natasha, so it’s weird to see these two interacting. This isn’t the first time these two have confused me by being co-cast…they were also in Serendipity together. Weird.

Anyway, then there’s Ginnifer Goodwin (Big Love) and Josh Duhamel (uhh…drawing a blank here…let’s just call him Hunk Actor), cast as Ramona’s Aunt and Uncle. Meh.

And finally, the worst part of all…Selena Gomez in the role of Beezus. This better not be a musical! Seriously, though, in this first chapter of the Ramona saga (originally titled Beezus and Ramona), Ramona is only a side character, and the novel is from Beezus’ point of view. It’s not until the following book, Ramona the Pest, that Ramona becomes the main character proper. So that means this could easily turn into a Disney crapathon that’s all about Selena. Let’s just hope the filmmakers stay true to the novels’ tone and don’t go all Camp Rock on it.