From President of the United States to hideously scarred Wild West gunslinger on a mission to take down a voodoo-using villain… it’s all in a year’s work, if you’re Josh Brolin.
Brolin, the man of the moment at, erm, the moment, is apparently this close to signing on to play Jonah Hex in Warner Bros.’ sci-fi western, which will be written and directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the dementors behind Crank.
Nothing’s official yet, but it seems that the deal is all but done.
So far, Neveldine/Taylor’s leading men for their unique run of testosterone-packed dementathons – Crank, its impending sequel and the forthcoming virtual reality actioner, Game – have been hewn from the same bad-ass and British rock.
But our feeling is that neither Jason Statham nor Gerry Butler would have been right for the role of Jonah Hex, a surly, scarred, monosyllabic Western gunslinger who travels through the Wild West, tangling with undesirable types, the odd zombie, and dispensing justice in the form of hot lead.
It’s a very American role, so we can see why Neveldine and Taylor – who have been planning this movie for ages (when Empire was on set of Game back in January, they were talking up major setpieces even then) – have plumped for Brolin. Not only is he one of the few American leading men who shares the same tough guy persona and physicality as your Stathams or Butler, he’s already adept at playing characters who wouldn’t look out of place in a Western, as evidenced by his turn in No Country For Old Men.
Of course, this is all just speculation at this point, but this is one rumour we’d like to believe. Brolin is a fine actor, and he’s had a wonderful eighteen months, flitting from the Coens’ film to Ridley Scott’s American Gangster to Robert Rodriguez’ Planet Terror (he was probably the best thing in that), to Gus Van Sant’s Milk, and of course Oliver Stone’s W., which may well garner him an Oscar nom.
But so far he’s resisted the temptation to parlay his newfound success into an event movie. Jonah Hex could be that movie – and if we know Neveldine and Taylor, it won’t be your typical popcorn-muncher.