Universal is making a big-budget action flick based on the comic series Wanted, and who better to lead the cast as a superpowered assassin than… um, the guy who played the forest-dwelling goat-man in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe?

James McAvoy ditches his horns and hooves for twin pistols in the adaptation of Top Cow’s comic, about a below-average working chump (blatantly drawn to resemble Eminem) who suddenly discovers he’s the son of a deceased supervillain and has inherited both his notoriety and his uncanny marksmanship abilities. He also learns that a cabal of villains long ago wiped out the world’s superheroes, and they’ve since been secretly controlling the planet – at least until internal conflicts arise within the ranks.

Russian director Timur Bekmambetov, who has been chronicling the eternal struggle between the forces of Light and Darkness with the dazzling and nonsensical Night Watch and Day Watch, brings his slick and energetic storytelling skills to the project, so it should look pretty snazzy. Writers Derek Haas and Michael Brandt (2 Fast 2 Furious) have their work cut out for them, though – while the comic had an innovative concept, it ended up being little more than a clumsy and vapid and self-consciously vulgar attempt at deconstructing comic book super-criminals.