Because even he’s not immune to the allures of a Sun-In mullet and a half wetsuit, Gerard Butler is in serious talks to star in the long-gestating Point Break remake. Vaya con dios, brah.
Butler will take the Patrick Swayze role, Bodhi, the ringleader of the merry band of surfers and bank robbers who take on the disguises of former presidents to pull off their heists. While Bodhi will still be the most bitchin’ surfer slash criminal mastermind to ever grace these shores, he’ll also be some kind of alternative sports hero, as the film is now set in a new, as of yet undisclosed extreme sports world, where Bodhi “seeks nirvana through the conquest of a series of athletic feats such as surfing 100-foot waves.”
Please let it be parkour. A gang of rubber-masked Ronald Reagans jumping off buildings and barrel rolling into banks with pizazz seems like almost as ridiculous a movie as its predecessor. BMX bikers? Oh! Skydivers. They could just capitulate on the skydiving scene from the original and continuously do that beautiful bonding thing where they come together in a circle, as one. As bros.
But the Kathryn Bigelow original wasn’t just about Bodhi and his criminal cohorts, and therefore half of the film is going to rely on finding a suitable match to go up against Butler; they’re going to need someone to take on the role of infiltrating young FBI agent Johnny Utah. With Keanu Reeves already saying he’s not interested in being involved with the film (seriously, why would he?) it’s crucial to find someone to fill that serious but spacey vibe that Reeves brought to the film, of someone tasked with bringing down a ring of criminals but finding himself becoming their friend.
As for Butler’s Bodhi, we already know that whatever the writers and director Ericson Core (Invincible) choose to do with the extreme sports angle, the actor has the surfing aspects down pat. Journey back to 2012, when Butler portrayed surfing legend Frosty Hesson (a real person with a real name) in Chasing Mavericks. Butler has the experience of surfing onscreen and rocking a blonde mullet, to boot.
Pure adrenaline, brah.