Hip hop artist, performer and filmmaker, RZA, didn’t exactly win hearts and minds across the board with his 2012 directorial kung fu feature, The Man With The Iron Fists. However, that hasn’t stopped him from keepin’ on keepin’ on, staking his claim in this year’s martial arts cinema run, playing the blind master in G.I. Joe: Retaliation, providing his musical touch through his protegè for Maresse Crump’s upcoming actioner, Formless, and soon enough, the villain opposite Tony Jaa in this year’s ensemble 3D Thai martial arts action spectacle, Tom Yum Goong 2.
This week, in additoon to all this, stories are now circulating from The Hollywood Reporter that the multifaceted musician/actor/director is being tapped for a starring role as the villain in the upcoming American remake of Pierre Morrel’s 2004 futuristic parkour action thriller, District B13. As reported back in February by Deadline, Relativity Media is co-financing the upcoming reboot film titled Brick Mansions with EuropaCorp, based on a script by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen with Besson protegè Camille Delamare directing. Besson is producing along with Ryan Kavanaugh, Tucker Tooley and Christophe Lambert.
The film is currently in production in Montreal, with actors Paul Walker and actor and parkour founder, David Belle who co-starred with actor, freerunner and fight choreographer Cyril Raffaelli in the previous films. Walker will play an undercover cop who enlists the help of a street smart freerunner to recover a weapon of mass destruction from a formidable criminal within the hood tenament known as “Brick Mansions”.
Walker will also appear in the upcoming release of Justin Lin’s Fast And Furious 6 this month, and is also tapped to star as the lead in Agent 47, Fox’s announced videogame-to-film adaptation reboot of the 2007 film, Hitman. The film will be based on a screenplay by Skip Woods and Michael Finch, and directed by Aleksander Bach.