A Jason Statham film always needs a good villain (preferably for him beat up a lot), and it looks like Parker has got one, as Michael Chiklis has signed up to be a bad guy in the Taylor Hackford directed action-thriller.
Jason Statham stars as the title character, a criminal who lives his life by a rigid code of conduct. He never steals from those who cannot afford it, and only resorts to violence when absolutely necessary. The film will be based on Donald E. Westlake’s novel The Hunter, one of a series of book about a thief.
The novel has already been loosely adapted before in the form of John Boorman’s classic Point Blank, starring Lee Marvin. That took the basic elements of a crime thriller and twisted the genre into something new and more interesting. It looks like Hackford wants to do the same, previously saying, “I don’t want to get stuck in a genre. What I like most about this piece of material is you can take a genre piece like this and turn it into a great movie.” The Mel Gibson flick Payback was also based on the same novel.
Deadline was first with the Chiklis news, but they had no details on his character, other than he’ll be Statham’s Nemesis. Shooting is scheduled to start in New Orleans next month. FilmDistrict