One of my favorite video game franchise that got less attention than it should have was the Max Payne series. You played as Max Payne, a NY cop embroiled in a conspiracy that left him framed for murder. The game earned a lot of parallels to The Matrix due to its “bullet time” slow-mo play, but interestingly Payne was well into development years before The Matrix was, it just didn’t get out until after (games take a long, long time). Thankfully someone was paying attention to this series though as Twentieth Century Fox has just lined up Mark Wahlberg to star in the big screen adaptation. Even better is the news that Uwe Boll won’t have anything to do with this game-to-movie event. Variety reports:

Twentieth Century Fox has Mark Wahlberg in the crosshairs for “Max Payne,” a live-action adaptation of the bestselling Rockstar videogame that will begin early next year. John Moore will direct.

Wahlberg is negotiating to play the titular cop who is haunted by the tragic loss of his family and has little regard for rules as he investigates a series of mysterious murders. He finds himself up against an adversary bent on destroying Max and the streets he protects.

The script was written by Beau Thorne. Julie Yorn is producing through Firm Films, along with Scott Faye.

Moore was the director for Owen Wilson’s “Behind Enemy Lines” and the remake “The Omen.” I didn’t see the Omen remake but Enemy Lines wasn’t too bad as far as the directing. I’m glad to see a studio taking a similar serious approach to this as comic books have been getting recently.

Source: Variety