Hey yo, it sounds as if MGM has landed a TKO on other studios vying for an upcoming dark superhero movie project titled SAMARITAN. As Deadline tells it, the original spec script from screenwriter Bragi F. Schut and Sylvester Stallone’s Balboa Productions has landed the Italian Stallion himself to star in the mysterious endeavor.
While plot details related to SAMARITAN remain under wraps at this time, we do know that the project is aiming to place a disturbing spin on the ever-present superhero genre. So much for that so-called "superhero fatigue," eh James Cameron?
Snarking aside, we’ve learned that MGM will develop SAMARITAN with Stallone and Braden Aftergood as part of a forthcoming slate for the sneer-lipped actor’s recently-established production house. Other projects in the works for Balboa Productions include a biopic focusing on Jack Johnson, the first African American heavyweight boxing champion, as well as HUNTER, an adaptation based on James Byron Huggins’s novel about seasoned tracker Nathaniel Hunter, Ghost: My Thirty Years as an FBI Undercover Agent. The novel serves as a memoir chronicling the life and times of 30-year FBI veteran Michael McGowan and Ralph Pezzullo. The film penned by Army Ranger Max Adams is said to explore the stealth-heavy stylings of work within special ops.
Meanwhile, Stallone’s highly-anticipated RAMBO 5: LAST BLOOD is now in post-production. Directed by Adrian Grunberg, the sequel will find John Rambo going up against a Mexican cartel in what’s reported to be his last rodeo as the iconic character.