Something went wrong. Try again later

Giant Bomb News

31 Comments

Wheelman Movie Hits the Road

Vin Diesel set to star in a movie based on a video game starring... Vin Diesel.

Like this, but fleshier.
Like this, but fleshier.
You know, after the miserable and 100% deserved failure of The Chronicles of Riddick, and the continued downward spiral of The Pacifier and Babylon A.D., I was pretty sure Vin Diesel's time in the spotlight was done. It seemed like he was transitioning smoothly into the second phase of his Jean-Claude Van Damme/Stephen Seagal-style career around the time that Midway first announced that Wheelman was being developed as both a movie and a video game simultaneously, a venture that I figured would go the same way as the aborted Spy Hunter movie that was going to star The Rock. The game got released, complete with a digital Dwayne Johnson, but the movie never got past the teaser poster

Then, last month, Vin somehow pulled the hat-trick with Fast and Furious, The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, and Wheelman, three properties that performed well enough to put him back in the good graces of people who like gruff, stoic one-liners and mindless entertainment in general. Now Variety is reporting that Paramount is ramping up production of The Wheelman the movie, with John Singleton, a director best known for his work on Boyz n the Hood and, uh, 2 Fast 2 Furious, attached to direct. 

So you've got the star of The Fast and the Furious, the director of its sequel, and a premise that basically sounds like The Fast and the Furious Gaiden. Sounds like a winner to me!