Posted in: Movies, Universal | Tagged: Cowboy Ninja Viking, film, Universal Pictures

Cowboy Ninja Viking Film Gets 2 New Writers

Published Thu, 17 May 2018 23:25:08 -0500

Last updated Fri, 18 May 2018 16:40:04 -0500

It's the age of the comic book adaptations, but that doesn't mean we're getting nothing but superhero movies from now. Sometimes we're going to get thing based off of more recent properties, and one of those stories is Cowboy Ninja Viking — a limited run series published that Image Comics that ran 10 issues from October 2009 to Novembwe 2010. It was created by A. J. Lieberman and Riley Rossmo, who were the writer and artist respectively.

A movie has been in development since 2010, first at Disney and now at Universal, and Chris Pratt is set to star with Michelle MacLaren set to direct. The movie has had its fair share of script issues, with Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese worked on the first version of the screenplay. In 2012 Craig Mazin was brought on and now Dan Mazeau and Ryan Engle have joined, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Dan Mazeau, who wrote Wrath of the Titans, and Ryan Engle, who worked on the Liam Neeson action movies The Commuter and Non-Stop as well as Dwayne Johnson's Rampage, have been hired to work together on Cowboy Ninja Viking.

Mazeau and Engle haven't worked together before, and it's not common for studios to ask two writers to work together when they aren't an established pair. In the THR report they say that Universal "felt each writer had his own strengths and ideas that they liked." Considering the issues they've had with getting this project off of the ground (Pratt was cast back in 2014, for example), it's not surprising they are taking a new approach to this material.

The pic, which will be helmed by Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad director Michelle MacLaren, tells of a counter-intelligence unit that uses multiple personality disorder patients to create agents known as Triplets, referring to the three personalities the killers have. When the agents become rogue hired guns, the deadliest Triplet of them all — one who can manifest the toughest skills of three different personas, that of a cowboy, a ninja and a Viking — is called in to take down his own brethren.

The production currently has a June 28th, 2019 release date, but they might run into scheduling conflicts with Pratt's very busy schedule. There isn't much time between now and when he'll need to get started shooting Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. There hasn't been a delay announced, but it wouldn't be that surprising if there was.

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