Why Mark Wahlberg Cast Justin Bieber for Basketball Movie

By Nick Martin | Dec 28, 2011 | Movie News (0) Comment

The Contraband star Mark Wahlberg has said that intuition made him team up with Justin Bieber for a new basketball drama movie.

Earlier this year the Oscar-nominated actor revealed he is collaborating on this film with the young Canadian star.

He’s now explained why he felt compelled to work with Bieber on the project.

Wahlberg told MTV News:

Intuition. I’m pretty intuitive. I see the guy and spent time with him, and you see what he does and how he does it, and then you actually have a conversation with him, and it’s there.

Mark is strong-minded Justin is the perfect choice for the future film, the details of which are a closely-guarded secret. However, if the young star does struggle Mark has a plan to help him out.

It’s there – and if not, I will extract it.

At least, Mark won’t have to ‘extract’ Biebs’ basketball skills as he showed that he was King of the Court by being named MVP at Ludacris’s charity basketball game earlier this year, and he even managed to score on legendary NBA star Steve Nash…

Wahlberg has previously admitted he initially got the wrong idea when approached about the project as he heard it would star two male actors and he thought he was going to play the young guy in.

This is what Mark said about his initial thoughts:

So I get this call from Paramount [with a story about] an old guy and a young guy. I’m like, ‘Cool, let’s get Jack [Nicholson]. Let’s get Robert De Niro. Let’s get Robert Duvall.’ And they go, ‘What about Garrett Hedlund?’ I’m like, ‘For what?’ They’re like, ‘For the young guy.

Well, the sports movie is rumored to start filming in the summer of 2012.

Are you excited about getting to see Biebs work with Mark Wahlberg?