A reader by the name of Ballack writes in from Berlin (one of my favorite cities in the world!) saying that Joel Silver was on German radio recently talking about Ninja Assassin, the James McTeigue-directed, Wachowski-produced martial arts movie. Ballack claims that Silver also spilled the beans on what the Wachowskis would be directing to follow-up Speed Racer* – Plastic Man.
You’ll remember that a pre-Matrix Bros W wrote a Plastic Man script, which Ballack claims Silver said would be the basis for this new film. Our scooper also reports that Silver said they want the movie to have a global release at the end of 2009.
And if that’s not a big enough story, Ballack further claims that Silver says that Keanu Reeves will be playing Eels O’Brien (the real name of Plastic Man). Apparently this is the start of a new love period between Reeves and the Wachowskis, as Silver (via Ballack) said that the brothers want to work with him on all their future projects.
Is any of this true? I’ve made a bunch of phone calls to representatives for the Brothers Wachowski and Keanu Reeves, and I’ve gotten ‘no comment’ and ‘let me look into that’ (which is publicist talk for ‘Talk to you never’), so take every single word in this story with a massive grain of salt.
But is it possible? Could be, which is why I’ve run it. The Wachowskis are almost certainly trying to figure out how to follow up the puzzling failure of Speed Racer – a PG-13, accessible but modestly edgy movie could be the thing. It’s a property I know they like, and going to Plastic Man could fit into the recent Warner Bros/DC Comics summit, which focused on bringing a wider variety of DC Universe properties to the screen.
I’m still waiting on some people to never get back to me – if they miraculously do, I’ll update this story as it happens.
*shame on you all for not going to see this movie in theaters. It was pretty good.