Some projects kick around Hollywood for years and wind up in development hell, and others manage to escape such a fate, and actually get made. As it turns out, “Cowboy Ninja Viking” is just such a picture.
Kicking around since at least 2010, the comic adaptation has seen various talent take a crack at it, including “Deadpool” and “Zombieland” writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, with Marc Forster attached to direct at one point, as were “John Wick” duo David Leitch and Chad Stahelski. Now the film has a release date, and it’ll be interesting to see who winds up behind the camera and working on the screenplay. But one thing is for sure, Chris Pratt, who joined the movie a couple years back, is still the star of this movie about a man who suffers from multiple personality disorder and is put into a government program to be turned into a super-soldier with the attributes of a cowboy, a ninja and a viking.
Universal Pictures has set the film with a healthy summer slot of June 28, 2019. The only film scheduled on that date right now is Paramount’s mooted “Transformers 7,” though who knows if that will stick given the dismal reception for this summer’s “Transformers: The Last Knight.”
Pratt is quickly becoming a summer movie season regular, having fronted the hugely successful “Jurassic World,” both “Guardians And The Galaxy” films, and of course next summer’s “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.” However, “Cowboy Ninja Viking” seems to be clear play to create a franchise that’s all his own. [THR]
