3. Warner Bros. Prepping Mack Bolan Franchise Around Bradley Cooper
According to Deadline, Warner Brothers is in the process of completely a seven-figure deal to acquire the rights to Don Pendleton's The Executioner series, which consists of 38 original novels and over 600 pieces of published works, to develop a franchise around the character of Mack Bolan for Bradley Cooper to play. Bolan is an anti-terrorist operative, described as "a principled warrior fighting larger-than-life adversaries in the spirit of a tougher American version of James Bond." Bolan became an expert sniper, which earned him the nickname The Executioner while in Vietnam as a Green Beret. The first film in the proposed franchise is being written by Avatar 4 scribe Shane Salerno, with The Hangover trilogy and Due Date director Todd Phillips being eyed to direct. If successful, it's easy to see how Mack Bolan could become the next Bond or Jason Bourne, and has a solid chance at striking gold with Cooper in the lead. This isn't the first time this franchise has been attempted though, as previous versions were shopped around to big Hollywood names like Steve McQueen, Sylvester Stallone, Clint Eastwood, and Vin Diesel.
James is a 24 year old writer and filmmaker living in Portland, OR. He attended college for graphic design and writes for various sources on the web about film, television, and entertainment.
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