Action star Vin Diesel has closed a deal to star in
Bloodshot, the first big-budget feature film to be based on a character created for Valiant Comics,
Deadline reports.
This will mark his second ongoing comic book role, since Diesel currently voices Groot in the
Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. The alien and his teammates will join The Avengers in
Avengers: Infinity War this summer.
The film will reportedly
begin production in the summer.
Per the Deadline report, the film's tone will be reminiscent "of the classic 1980s tentpoles like
Robocop, Terminator and
Total Recall."
Bloodshot will star Diesel in the title role as Ray Garrison, a super-soldier created by the secret government organization Project Rising Spirit. Garrison's powers come from "nanites," which enter his bloodstream and give him a variety of powers, including the ability to recover from almost any trauma by consuming protein.
The process which gave him his powers also installed a number of implanted identities into
Bloodshot's brain, creating a lasting identity crisis. For most of his publishing history,
Bloodshot has not known his true identity, and has had no life outside of being Bloodshot. The current Bloodshot Reborn series, in which he tries (and mostly fails) to have a normal life, could easily be a major influence on the feature film, as it would ground the character somewhat.
The idea of the implanted identities was not to dehumanize him (although at times that provided some unexpected boons) but to give him personal motivations for each new mission.
His original purpose was to hunt down and capture or assassinate psiots -- rogue superhumans with mental powers that had been developed as part of Project Rising Spirit. Eventually, he broke through his programming and set about trying to learn the truth about himself.
Created in 1992 by Kevin VanHook, Don Perlin, and Bob Layton, Bloodshot’s anonymous backstory likely owes something to Wolverine, who was also the product of a clandestine experiment that gave him a healing factor. Wolverine's own past was largely unwritten at the time of Bloodshot’s creation. Agonizing about, and searching for, his true self was a major part of Wolverine’s story in the’ 90s.
When Valiant relaunched in 2012 after about a decade without new comics, Duane Swierczynski reinvented Bloodshot for the new line.
Jeff Wadlow and Eric Heisserer will write the film for director David Wilson, who worked with Tim Miller (
Deadpool) at Blur Studios.
Little else is known about the project, although Jared Leto is reportedly in talks to play villain Angelo Mortalli. The hope is that Bloodshot will be successful enough to launch a trilogy of interconnected films, including the Project Rising Spirit-heavy
Harbinger and
Harbinger Wars.
With little movement on the live-action front since 2012, DMG
recently took over Valiant, and will try to fast-track the planned film projects.
First up will be the webseries
Ninjak vs. the Valiant Universe, which stars Mike Rowe in the title role and pits him against -- among others -- Bloodshot, who will make his live-action debut played by Jason David Frank.
