Anthony Mackie has been cast in the lead role on Sony Pictures Television’s live-action “Twisted Metal” series. Marvel’s former Falcon and future Captain America will play the John Doe role from the popular vehicular combat video-game series, which first launched in 1995.
Mackie will also executive produce the show. Sony and PlayStation Productions said in a press release on Wednesday that they are “currently in advanced development on the project and plan to take it to buyers soon.”
Doe is described as “a smart-ass milkman who talks as fast as he drives.”
“With no memory of his past, John gets a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make his wish of finding community come true, but only if he can survive an onslaught of savage vehicular combat,” Sony continued.
“‘Twisted Metal’ is a high-octane action comedy, based on an original take by Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick about a motor-mouthed outsider (that’d be Doe) offered a chance at a better life, but only if he can successfully deliver a mysterious package across a post-apocalyptic wasteland,” the show’s logline reads. “With the help of a trigger-happy car thief, he’ll face savage marauders driving vehicles of destruction and other dangers of the open road, including a deranged clown who drives an all too familiar ice cream truck.”
Michael Jonathan Smith will write and executive produce the series. Reese and Wernick also executive produce, as will Will Arnett, Marc Forman, Peter Principato, Mackie’s manager Jason Spire, Asad Qizilbash, Carter Swan and Hermen Hulst.
“We’re thrilled to have Anthony Mackie on board,” Qizilbash, head of PlayStation Productions, said in a statement on Wednesday. “His ability to blend comedy, action and drama is perfect for the Twisted world we’re creating.”
“We’ve been big fans of Anthony’s phenomenal body of work over the years and knew he was the only actor who could play a character as complex, funny and compelling as John Doe,” Glenn Adilman, executive vice president of comedy development at Sony Pictures Television, added. “Fortunately for us, he agreed.”
Deadline first reported the casting news.