The last time we had a cowboy genre mash up we ended up with the woeful Cowboys & Aliens. Marc Forster is looking to redress the balance, as when he’s done with directing zombie flick World War Z, he’ll be tackling the adaptation of comic book Cowboy Ninja Viking.
The source material, created by AJ Lieberman and Riley Rossmo, is a about a man entered into a secret government program aimed at turning schizophrenia patients into asassins. Something goes wrong and he’s left with the skill sets of those three titular warriors – handy as when the program shuts down, some of the test subjects escape and he’s tasked with tracking them down. He’s also on a mission to find the man who funded the project in the first place. Sounds a little like the Wolverine/Weapon X storyline, but that’s a good ‘un.
Bizarrely, it was originally picked up by Disney way back in the mists of 2010 and they promptly attached Zombieland writers Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese. Good picks certainly but it’s not really the kind of subject matter that Disney usually dabbles in, so it’s not really a surprise that they’ve jumped ship and Universal have picked up the ball instead.
Shooting’s due to start later this year as soon as Forster finishes up with World War Z.
