I wish Dolph was in COPLAND! I'd love to see him in Sly's role or similar...
As far as wasting time goes, stuff like ITOTK2 is a waste of time but this kind of work can only solidify his confidence with his acting and will always have its pay off in the long term I think. And if it doesn't go anywhere, few people would have seen it so nobody would care, it would be a bigger embarrassment to do a crappy silly role in a bad bigger movie. When Dolph moved from LA to NY in 94-95 he took some time to do some theater and performed in small one-act plays off-Broadway, would you have said it was a bad move back then or now, did it hurt him or prevent him of pursue his film career?
Let's see how this goes, it's not even shot yet, but whether it's this or SMALL APARTMENTS, and whether the quality or success is there or not, I'm glad he takes his chances with this kind of projects.