After proving he could wield the mighty hammer of “Thor” with wit and charm to spare (one of the few lively things in the otherwise kind of stodgy comic movie), Chris Hemsworth is springboarding into other films. He’s got “Snow White And The Huntsman” on his dance card, a couple of completed movies waiting to be released (“Red Dawn,” “Cabin In The Woods“) and of course, he’s already on to his next Marvel gig in “The Avengers” but it looks like he’s stepping out of the fantasy/remake realm for his next role.
Sony has picked up the black ops thriller “Shadow Runner” and has Hemsworth attached to star. Written by the omnipresent Hossein Amini (who is doing rewrites on ‘Huntsman’ and penned Nicolas Winding Refn‘s “Drive“), according to Deadline, the film was apparently inspired by the real life assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al Mabhouh early last year. In the much publicized killing, Mossad agents tracked him to a hotel in Dubai, and smuggled an 11-strong hit team into the country without the authorities knowing, and killed Mabhouh in his hotel room. The only evidence was hotel room CCTV footage which caught the team going in and leaving, but nothing more. The film won’t be a recreation of those events, but will find Hemsworth leading a special forces team who carry out seemingly impossible missions (sounds like another movie or three we’ve heard about).
There is no director attached right now, nor a start date but the film will have to wait anyway for Hemsworth to finish up ‘Huntsman’ which shoots in Europe later this year. “Shadow Runner” does sound promising but with “The Bourne Legacy,” “Act Of Valor,” Kathryn Bigelow‘s and countless other special ops films all in the works, here’s hoping there is something distinctive about it to make it stand out from the pack.
