Chris Evans to star in a film with only one line of dialogue?

In 2009, writer Chad St. John made the Black List with MOTOR CITY, his tale of revenge that was notable for one particular hook: it contains only one line of dialogue throughout the whole movie. The script has been bouncing around struggling to find traction, until now when things seem to be heating up. Albert Hughes, who recently left Warner Bros.’ adaptation of AKIRA, is in talks to direct with an offer out to Chris Evans to star in the lead role.

Unfortunately, MOTOR CITY won’t be very silent by the time it makes it to theaters. The script was picked up by Joel Silver and St. John rewrote his initial draft with the note to “add more dialogue.” Both scripts still exist and St. John told ScriptShadow last year, “We still go back and forth as to which version is the right one to get made. I suspect it might be a version that combines the no dialogue and dialogue versions. We’ll see.”

The entire premise of the film was pitched as a “silent revenge movie” so I’m not sure what adding dialogue does for the film but there’s a lot that Joel Silver does to his films lately that I don’t really understand.

Right now there’s just an offer out to Evans who is presumably fielding many offers after a successful turn as CAPTAIN AMERICA. Frankly I think the better Evans/Hughes match-up would have been on AKIRA as Evans seems to be a decent compromise for Kaneda (certainly a far better choice than Brad Pitt).