You’ve got a video game about a bald, cold-hearted killer who sneaks around conducting hits on targets. Now you’ve got a movie adaptation being made of that video game. Who do you cast in the lead role? Hollywood hairless staples Vin Diesel or Jason Statham? Nope. Instead the filmmakers are turning to Live Free or Die Hard villain Timothy Olyphant.
Variety confirmed earlier this week that Olyphant had been cast in the lead role of Hitman, the adaptation based on the video game series. The deal between Olyphant and 20th Century Fox includes sequels, with hopes of turning the film into a franchise as successful as the video games they’ll be based on.
Olyphant, who will appear this summer against John McClane in Live Free or Die Hard, is probably best known to date for his role as Sherrif Seth Bullock on HBO’s “Deadwood.”
It should be noted that this film started with talk of Diesel appearing in the lead role but instead the actor moved on to Fox’s Babylon A.D.
