Vin Diesel had been attached to the
Hitman project for as long as I can remember but the unexpected annoucement today on
AICN is that he is being replaced by
Timothy Olyphant.
Scream 2,
Deadwood and
Go have all featured Olyphant as a cool bad guy and of course next Summer he is set to go up aganist
Bruce Willis in
Live Free or Die Hard. I must say I find this casting more than a little strange. Apart from looking nothing like the character, Olyphant is known for his over-the-top performances, his fantastic energy and emotional involvement into characters and is second to none at delivering cool monologues. Basically everything the Hitman character is not, which worries me about the direction the movie could be going in. The Hitman character is cold and rarely shows any emotion. His dialogue is minimal (think "Eastwood"in the Dollars trilogy) only bothering to speak usually after a kill where he can deliver a dry one-liner to himself. I know a lot of you guys were aganist Vin Diesel as Agent 47 but I thought he would have done a great job. I could imagine him as carrying all the characteristics mentioned above and come on.... no-one has the look from the video games as closely as Vin Diesel. The movie is scheduled to be in cinema's sometime next year, with the "retired"
Luc Besson on board to produce. My anticipation for this movie has now dropped considerably. source -
aicn