As many noted at the time, X-Men Origins: Wolverine was less a movie and more an excuse to introduce a lot of character people might want to see getting their own spin-off movie. One character that people had high hopes for was Gambit, played by Friday Night Light’s actor Taylor Kitsch, but interest in a spin-off quickly faded once people actually saw the film.
However while what looked like it was going to be Kitsch’s big break may not have panned out as he’d hoped, he’s still being lined up to become a major star, as not only has he got the lead role in Disney’s John Carter Of Mars in the bag, but THR is now reporting that he’s signed on for Universal’s mega-budget adaptation of the Hasbro board game, Battleship, which Pete Berg is directing.
The movie will see an international fleet coming together to take on an alien force called The Regents, who want to build a power source in the ocean, as well as to fix their broken spaceships (which also allows the film to keep the aliens on the ocean surface once they arrive on our planet). The plan is to make the aliens not too far ahead of us, so that it becomes about strategic warfare rather than just who has the biggest and most advanced guns, with Berg promising the movie will tell the story from both the human and extraterrestrial perspectives. Kitsch is playing a Naval commander named Alex Hopper, described as “wildly spirited” and “a great seaman but a lousy politician.”
Are there really that many Naval commanders who are only 29?
Until recently Jeremy Renner was being lined up for the role, but apparently due to scheduling conflicts he had to choose between Battleship and Paul Thomas Anderson’s new flick, and decided to go with the latter.
Battleship is currently scheduled for release on May 25th, 2012 (having been put back from a summer 2011 release).