Paramount Adapting Max Steel
According to Variety, Paramount Pictures is teaming with Joe Roth to bring the Mattel action figure Max Steel to theaters.
The toy property revolves around Josh McGrath, 19-year-old extreme sports junkie recruited by a secret agency after an accident infects his body with nanobots, making him superhuman.
Mattel introduced the character in the U.S. in 1999 as an action figure, and soon after in an animated series that ran from 2000-2002. Max Steel is Latin America’s No. 1 action figure.
“A theatrical film plays a significant role to relaunch the franchise,” said Barry Waldo (via Variety), Mattel’s VP of worldwide entertainment marketing. “But we have a strong Latin consumer we’re going to keep happy while broadening the franchise for the rest of the world. We wouldn’t do ourselves a favor if we turned a blind eye to it. That’s the artistic challenge we’ve got.”
Currently, Mattel and Roth are seeking a screenwriter and director, the plan is for them to work closely with Mattel to create characters and a storyline that match what the company hopes to do with the property.
Vin Diesel is Back – xXx: The Return of Xander Cage
Vin Diesel holding a sawed-off Remington 870 shotgun as Xander Cage in XXX
Columbia Pictures is in negotiations with producer Joe Roth to develop a new version of xXx, and plans to bring back Vin Diesel and Rob Cohen. According to Variety, the pair have agreed to come back for the new project although no deal has been signed yet.
Vin Diesel as star and Rob Cohen as director worked together on the 2002 original but neither returned for the sequel, xXx: State Of The Union, which starred Ice Cube and was directed by Lee Tamahori.
“XXX” is a 2002 action movie that has been marketed as a modern James Bond style film. Starring Diesel, Samuel L. Jackson and Asia Argento, the flick has become a hit collecting as much as $142.1 million nationwide and $277.4 million worldwide. Following its success, a sequel is made for 2005 release. But, the reception was poor as it only managed to bring in $71 million worldwide.
The third incarnation has a title, xXx: The Return of Xander Cage, but no script. No word on when production will begin.
