OK, so you're a Hollywood executive and you're trying to cast the lead in a film called Death Race 2000. Now the original film starred David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone, and had a tongue-in-cheek satirical quality to go with the extreme violence and breakneck race scenes - so you need someone who can do tough, and funny, and against-the-odds. Ladies and gentlemen, there could be only one - and we're not talking Christopher Lambert. Do we even have to tell you that they want Jason Statham?
Yup, our Jase is in talks to star in a retooled version of the film, taking (we assume - nothing's been confirmed yet) the Carradine role of Frankenstein, an anti-hero and one of the nicer drivers in a New York-LA race where contestants get points for mowing down innocent pedestrians. The original film satirised sports, the media, politics and religion and is a much-loved cult classic from legendary producer Roger Corman - think Idiocracy (the three of you who managed to see it) rather than the recent Rollerball remake.
This one, however, is being written and directed by Paul WS Anderson, so who knows what we'll see onscreen. We can only hope that he can rediscover his 1997 form and produce something on a level with, say, Event Horizon rather than anything he's done since - but with Cruise/Wagner co-producing (Tom Cruise was set to star at Paramount before the two companies broke up) and original producer Roger Corman back as executive producer, fingers crossed Anderson'll pull out all the stops this time.
Anyway, Statham's surely a step in the right direction - although at this rate he does risk being typecast as the Guy Who Goes Fast And Causes Lots Of Criminal Damage, after two Transporter films, The Italian Job, Cellular and the almighty Crank. After all, surely some of us want to see Statham do Shakespeare, Marlowe, maybe a little Beckett - right? Hello? Oh, fine! Cast him in **Driver **already too, why don't you? Philistines.