Gael García Bernal Is The New Zorro

He's been hyped up as a potential superstar leading man ever since he first made a splash in the early 2000s, but until now, Gael García Bernal has resisted starring in overtly mainstream movies. Looks like this is all about to change, as the 38-year old Mexican actor (a recent Golden Globe winner for Amazon Prime series Mozart In The Jungle) is set to play arguably the most iconic Latino hero of them all.

Deadline report that García Bernal has signed on to take the lead in Z, a reboot of Zorro from director Jonás Cuarón. Long in development, this new take on the iconic pulp hero moves the set-up from the traditional time period of 19th century Spanish-ruled California, to a near future setting. (At one point a Mad Max-esque post-apocalyptic scenario was planned, which sounds sort of awesome - but reportedly this off the cards now.)

García Bernal follows in the footsteps of many big name actors, the most recent of course being Antonio Banderas, who really made the role his own alongside Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones in the 1998 action adventure hit The Mask of Zorro, and to a lesser extent in its 2005 sequel The Legend of Zorro.

The actor made a name for himself in such critical hits as The Motorcycle Diaries (in which he played a young Che Guevara), Amores Perros, and Y Tu Mama Tambien - the last of which saw him work with Alfonso Cuarón, father of Z director Jonás Cuarón. García Bernal and the younger Cuarón first teamed up 2015 thriller Desierto, set to open later this year.