In November, Chris Pratt signed onto star as the lead in an adaptation of A.J. Lieberman and Riley Rossmo’s COWBOY NINJA VIKING. As the headliner for this particular project, Pratt’s apparently been meeting with directors to try and get this going before his slate becomes too cluttered, and has set his sights on the JOHN WICK dudes, David Leitch and Chat Stahelski.
An offer has been made to the former stunt coordinators/second unit directors to direct Universal’s adaptation.
COWBOY NINJA VIKING is about a group of assassins, called “Triplets,” who have been diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder, and use that mental fragmentation to their advantage. That’s how our titular hero, actually named Duncan, is able to possess the skills and characteristics of a cowboy, a ninja, and a viking all at the same time. Sound cool?
JOHN WICK contained some of the best action beats I’ve seen in years, and thrilled many of us with its reliance on long takes and good ol’ fashioned stunt work (clearly due to the efforts of Leitch and Stahelski, not to mention Keanu), so anything these guys do immediately has my interest. Put them on a genre-mashing movie literally called COWBOY NINJA VIKING, and I’m there opening night. Add the white-hot Chris Pratt on top, and you have something which could easily be one of my most anticipated projects of the next couple of years.
This seems like the first franchise newly-minted movie star Pratt is really shepherding himself, so we can assume it’ll feature his brand of humor alongside the eye-popping stunts and kills the directors will undoubtedly conceive. So if you ever wonder if Pratt is genuinely a cool dude like the one he plays in TV/movies, remember that he used his megastar clout to get a fuckin' movie called COWBOY NINJA VIKING off the ground.
