Vin Diesel’s superhero movie “Bloodshot” will hit theaters on February 21, 2020, Sony announced Wednesday.
The studio started production this month on the first film to feature Diesel in a live-action superhero role. Eiza Gonzalez, Michael Sheen, Toby Kebbell and Sam Heughan also star. The film will also reunite Diesel with “Fast and the Furious” mega-producer Neal Moritz. This is the first time that Moritz and Diesel have worked together outside of the “Fast and Furious” franchise. Dan Mintz, founder of DMG Entertainment, is also producing. They recently acquired the entirety of Valiant Entertainment’s IP.
Dave Wilson, who is “Deadpool” director Tim Miller’s partner at Blur Studios, is attached to direct.
“Bloodshot” is about a mortally wounded soldier resurrected with cutting-edge nanotechnology and tasked with rounding up super-powered outcasts known as “harbingers.” “Bloodshot” was created for Valiant Comics by Kevin Van Hook, Don Perlin and Bob Layton in 1992.
“Bloodshot” ran for 110 issues with more than 7.5 million copies sold. Valiant’s bench of more than 2,000 superhero characters (with sales of more than 81 million copies) makes it the third-largest library of superheroes behind Marvel and DC — and the only one not owned by a major conglomerate.
According to insiders, Sony and Wilson plan to follow in the footsteps of the recent success of “Logan” and “Deadpool” with an R-rated take on the comic adaptation that will be tonally and aesthetically influenced by high-concept, sci-fi blockbusters of the late 1980s, including “Robocop,” “Terminator” and “Total Recall.”
So far, no other movie is slated to open on February 21, 2020. Sony also dated Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” for December 25, 2019, and “Zombieland 2” for October 11, 2019.