Vin Diesel’s Bloodshot Has Cast Its Villain

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Vin Diesel's big screen career as a comic book character has been heard but not seen, but an upcoming project will finally put him on the big screen and now we know who he'll be battling. Vin Diesel is currently hard at work getting in shape in order to bring Bloodshot to the big screen and now it has been announced that Planet of the Apes star Toby Kebbell will star opposite Diesel as the Harbinger Ax.

Toby Kebbell himself is an actor known for being heard but not seen, as he frequently handles motion capture roles such as the Planet of the Apes movies and Warcraft and while a role in a big comic book movie could certainly lead to a similar role, that doesn't appear to be the case here. The character of Ax in the Bloodshot comics isn't a monstrous supervillain, but instead a human with innate technical wizardry. While the character has gone through a number of changes in the comics over the years, the original version of Ax, who is the more villainous, and thus likely the version we'll see in the film, has the ability to communicate directly with technology, giving him the ability to hack ATMs, before graduating to hacking into entire banks. In later versions of the comic Ax is more of a political activist character. Perhaps we could see Ax evolve over time if Bloodshot becomes a franchise, or some elements of the newer character could be used in the film version as well.

This could be something of a redemption opportunity for Toby Kebbell, whose previous turn as a comic book bad guy was as Doom in the most recent Fantastic Four movie. That one didn't exactly go over well as the film was universally panned by both critics and fans, leaving the entire franchise is in limbo.

Bloodshot will be one of the first major attempts recently to start a comic book film franchise based on a character that isn't part of the larger DC or Marvel universes. Bloodshot is part of the Valiant universe and has the potential to spawn a number of sequels and spinoffs itself using other characters within the Valiant Entertainment brand.

The Wrap reports that production on Bloodshot is set to begin next month so we can expect that any other major roles that need to be filled will be handled in short order. Currently, Michael Sheen, Eiza González, Talulah Riley, Alex Hernandez and Sam Heughan are all attached to the project in various capacities. Dave Wilson is set to direct, it will be his first film in that role.

Currently Bloodshot has no release date but if production is getting underway now we could potentially see the film as early as next summer.