Mark Wahlberg seems to be lining up an awful lot of projects at the moment which he’s either producing, starring in or both, including Ted, Uncharted, The Fighter 2, Bait and Switch, Broken City, Contraband and The Raven. If that weren’t enough, he’s now adding two more, Billy Jack and When Corruption Was King, although it isn’t certain if he’ll star in both or just produce.
According to Variety, Frank Baldwin is writing the screenplay for When Corruption Was King, which will be adapted from the Robert Cooley novel of the same name. The story centres on a Chicago lawyer who rose through the ranks to become a trusted member of an organised crime family. When he turns states evidence, he tries to take the mob down.
The Tracking Board has the info on Billy Jack, a remake of the 1971 movie, which was set up at Dreamworks with Keanu Reeves set to star. However when the rights lapsed, Wahlberg swooped in and picked them up. Currently the movie has no studio home, although presumably Mark is looking for one. Here’s the synopsis of the 1971 Billy Jack movie from IMDB, ‘Billy Jack is a half-Indian/half-white ex-Green Beret who is being drawn more and more toward his Indian side. He hates violence, but can’t get away from it in the white man’s world. Pitting the good guys, the students of the peace-loving free-arts school in the desert vs. the conservative bad guys in the near-by town, the movie plays definitive late-60s themes/messages: anti-establishment, make love not war, the senseless slaughter of God’s creatures, the rape of society (figuratively and literally), two-sided justice, racial segregation and prejudices, and basic socialist ideals.’
It’s a film with franchise potential, so you can certainly understand why Keanu and now Wahlberg have sniffed around it. With Wahlberg already busy, it’s possible it may not have time to star in either of these, but they’re currently on his production radar at least.