For a while there 20th Century Fox was in video-game movie mode producing movies like Max Payne, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li and Hitman. While we’re unlikely to see sequels to the first two movies anytime soon, Fox is pushing for a sequel to Hitman with Spanish filmmaker Daniel Benmayor pegged to direct.
It is unclear whether or not Timothy Olyphant will reprise his role as Agent 47, even though Deadline is reporting that the studio has an option for him to play the character again. At the time Olyphant was coming off of HBO’s Deadwood and playing the nemesis to Bruce Willis’s John McClane character in Live Free or Die Hard. But now he’s playing trigger-happy lawman Raylan Givens on the popular Justified series.
As for Benmayor, he will be making his Hollywood debut with Hitman 2. His first feature is the Spanish language action film Paintball, where adrenaline junkies get dropped in a dense forest for a paint match, and find that someone is using real ammo. (Cue U.S. remake in 3, 2, 1….)
The Pulse: I thought the first Hitman sucked. But Fox did cut a great trailer making it look cool. It went on to gross $100 million worldwide and only cost $23 million to make. Hollywood is a sequel-making machine and that also extends to remakes. So this announcement doesn’t surprise me. Though, I could easily see this going direct-to-video if Olyphant isn’t involved.
