From The Transporter to Crank to The Expendables, Jason Statham has spent the past decade carving a niche for himself as the tough guy hero/anti-hero who has gone to the old school of action movies from the 1970s and 1980s.
Now, the man who is consider a cross between Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson has attached himself to star and produce Heat, director Brian De Palma’s remake of the 1986 film based on the novel from William Goldman, who also wrote the screenplay.
Statham will succeed Burt Reynolds in the role of a Las Vegas gambler/bodyguard helping a rape victim seek justice against her attackers, but ends up becoming a target of revenge himself.
Though not a box office hit when it came out, the original Heat has become somewhere between “guilty pleasure” and “cult favorite” thanks to cable in the last several years.
The remake is set to begin shooting in France later this year.
Meanwhile, catch Statham back in action with Stallone, Li, Lundgren, Crews, Couture, Willis, and Schwarzenegger in The Expendables 2, which comes out August 17.
