There’s something to be said for Tom Jane’s geek dedication – not only is his upcoming slate filled with comic book projects, but now he’s gunning for some mutants.
Nope, it’s not a Marvel crossover movie with the Punisher blasting holes in the ever-increasing X-Men ranks (for now we’ll have to speculate that Brett Ratner is capably demolishing that franchise unassisted), but Tom will be facing some heavy hitters in The Mutant Chronicles.
The sci-fi epic, based on the role-playing game (my only personal experience with the property is the Doom Troopers game on Super Nintendo, which was basically a flimsy Contra copycat), is set centuries in the future where corporations have waged war over the solar system’s natural resources. Jane will lead a squad of elite soldiers against a marauding legion of demonic Necro-powered mutants who come to harvest the remnants. It will be very different from The Chronicles of Riddick because…lessee… uh… Tom Jane has hair? Yeah.
The project has been swirling around for over a decade with various directors attached, including John Carpenter (who eventually made an unfortunate trek to the red planet with Ghosts of Mars), Roger Christian (who fulfilled his Dutch-angled alien invasion quota with the modern classic Battlefield Earth), and Blade guy Steve Norrington (who apparently now hates both filmmaking and you). Brit director Simon Hunter, who’s been shepherding the Chronicles since his last film in 2000, is taking the reins.