Guilty pleasure movies are the flicks that you’d probably never seek out or intentionally pop into the DVD player, but sometimes when you’re flipping channels you’ll see one and decide to just watch a minute or two. And end up sucked in through the very end. One of my guiltier pleasures is Keanu Reeves’ Street Kings. Not a great movie, and most folks would agree it isn’t even a good movie, but something about it’s pacing, action, and overzealous Forrest Whitaker keeps me glued to the screen each time I come across it on HBO.
I feel the same way (to a lesser degree) about Timothy Olyphant’s Hitman.
Olyphant plays a bald hitman named Agent 47 who was tattooed with a UPC code on the back of his neck. He shoots lots of people and refuses to have sex with a naked and willing Olga Kurylenko. He’s the world’s first eunuch-cum-assassin apparently. As far as movies based on video games it’s not nearly as bad as crap like Max Payne or Double Dragon, but it’s no classic like Streetfighter: Legend of Chun-Li either. It’s filled with lots of stupid action but director Xavier Gens keeps things looking good and stylish. On a (reported) budget of roughly $30 million the movie ended up doing pretty well for itself pulling in $100 million worldwide.
So news of a sequel shouldn’t be all that surprising…
Per Deadline Topeka, Fox has a finished script by Daniel Casey and has hired Spanish director Daniel Benmayor to helm the follow-up with a start date just months away. Fox apparently has an option out to Olyphant but I think it’s pretty clear he won’t be returning. He already wasn’t a fan of shaving his dreamy locks but now he has a successful TV series (Justified) to consider too… that cowboy hat just wouldn’t sit well on a bald head. Expect an announcement soon as to whether he’ll be returning or if he’ll be passing the trigger finger onto some other lucky thespian. And no, Jason Statham will not be playing Agent 47 anytime soon.
What did you think of Hitman? Do you care to see a sequel? And does it need to star Olyphant?
Related Topics: Action
