The Hitman games are some of the best around when it comes to offering exciting action and stealth gameplay, and last year’s Hitman 2 surely was another sterling entry in the series as we pointed out in our review.
Hitman has also been turned into a movie, even though it’s been quite a while since the last Hitman movie hit theatres back in summer 2015.
This doesn’t mean that there are no movie producers or directors interested in bringing Hitman to the silver screen again, and for instance back in 2017 Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn said he wanted to make a Hitman film a couple of years ago, but his proposal was seemingly too edgy for the producers, who refused Gunn’s offer.
And now actor and director Jay Baruchel, how lent his voice to the Disney film How to Train Your Dragon and is noted for other good performances, has spoken up, criticizing the Hitman movies that have come up to date and saying he’d like to have a go at making a movie starring bald antihero Agent 47.
“I, like, loathe to say it because they tried it twice and they’re both cr*p”, Baruchel told GameCentral (via Metro).
“I shouldn’t say that. I don’t know if Hitman has gotten any proper cinematic treatment. Literally every time I’ve ever played Hitman I’ve been wishing what kind of movie it would be. I know, at the very least, I’d be psyched up to see the movie that I’d come up with. So 100% if it was awesome and I thought that I was the best guy to do it, then f**k yeah”, added the Canadian actor and director.
I’ve got to disagree with Baruchel here though – while 2015’s Hitman: Agent 47 was truly a disappointment and ranks amongst the worst video game movies to date (and it’s not so great box office performance may have put off moviemakers from bringing Hitman to theatres for a long while), 2007’s Hitman is actually pretty watchable, with good set pieces and decent performances from both Timothy Olyphant and sexy French actress Olga Kurylenko. It’s amongst the highest-grossing video game movies to date.
But admittedly most video game movies haven’t been great movies, and Jay Baruchel also explained why this might be the case.
“This is pure conjecture on my part, but I suspect it’s down to competing priorities. There’s going to be people who want the movie to be as close to the game as possible. And I think there’s going to be people who still need it to be a movie”, said Baruchel.
Because let’s face it: the video game movie curse is very real, as highlighted by recent film adaptations of video games such as Assassin’s Creed, Tomb Raider and others.
Here’s hoping though, that if Canadian director Jay Baruchel gets to make a Hitman film this will live up to the great video game series when it hits theatres at a future date.
Hitman (20th Century Fox)