The studio will start principal photography in July. The film will also reunite Diesel with “Fast and the Furious” mega-producer Neal Moritz, who is producing alongside Valiant’s Dinesh Shamdasani. This is the first time that Moritz and Diesel have worked together outside of the “Fast and Furious” franchise.
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 by Kevin Van Hook, Don Perlin and Bob Layton in 1992.
“Bloodshot” over its comic book run amassed 110 issues of comics with over 7.5 million copies sold. Valiant’s library is truly one of the great and as-yet untapped wells of intellectual property. The publisher’s bench of more than 2,000 superhero characters (with lifetime sales of more than 80 million copies) makes it the third largest library of superheroes behind Marvel and DC — and the only one not currently owned by a major conglomerate. Valiant’s comic books are the best-reviewed books over the past five years; “Bloodshot” in particular has been honored with numerous critics’ awards.
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 ’80s including “Robocop,” “Terminator” and “Total Recall.”
“Bloodshot” will be a return to Diesel’s roots — he launched to international fame as a hard-hitting action star in “xXx” and “Pitch Black” before locking into “The Fast and the Furious” series. Diesel was also 2017’s top-grossing actor at the box office. According to Forbes, Diesel topped the list with $1.6 billion in global ticketing receipts, thanks to the success of “xXx: The Return of Xander Cage” and “Fate of the Furious.”
Diesel is now locking down a superhero franchise to call his own — one that Sony is targeting as a hard-R, big-budget tentpole for 2019.
Diesel is repped by CAA.
15 Male Stars Who've Been Body Shamed, From Leonardo DiCaprio to Jonah Hill (Photos)
Hollywood is notorious for having unrealistic expectations when it stars' bodies. We're used to hearing stories about body shaming from women -- but here are some men who have also dealt with body-shaming trolls.
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Leonardo DiCaprio
When the teen heartthrob-turned- leading man went on vacation in 2014, he was made fun of online for his lack of a six-pack.
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Wentworth Miller
The "Prison Break" actor spoke out against body shaming in 2016, pointing out that his weight gain was a sign of his depression. "In 2010, at the lowest point in my adult life, I was looking everywhere for relief/comfort/distraction. And I turned to food. It could have been anything. Drugs. Alcohol. Sex. But eating became the one thing I could look forward to," he wrote on Facebook.
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Val Kilmer
In 2014, Kilmer virtually eye-rolled at the double standard in Hollywood. "Can't win in this crazy town. Too heavy for too many years and now gossip says, too thin!" he wrote on Facebook in 2014. The actor was losing weight to play his dream role, Mark Twain. He makes a good point; actors often change their body type for different roles.
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Vin Diesel
Known for his muscular physique, even Diesel has experienced body shaming. In 2015, photos surfaced showing his stomach, and people online went into a frenzy. "I don’t care, really. I’m not trying to be in super shape all of the time. I’m trying to master my craft of making films," the actor said on an episode of "Good Morning America."
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Sam Smith
Howard Stern mocked the Grammy and Oscar winner with one of those insults phrased as a compliment. "Do you know what I love about that guy? He’s an ugly motherf---er. He’s fat. And I love it," Stern said on his radio show in 2015.
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Rob Kardashian
The only man in the Kardashian clan has been dealing with body shaming for years. He was diagnosed with diabetes and is open in discussing his depression. In a recent season of "Keeping Up With the Kardashians," he talked about trying to eat healthier and hit the gym more.
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Jay Cutler
When his wife, Kristin Cavallari, posted a photo on Instagram of the two on vacation in Mexico in 2017, body shamers took to the comments to voice their opinions of the NFL star's body. When the photo was taken, the quarterback had been out for months with an injury.
Instagram/@kristincavallari
Aaron Carter
The singer told his social media followers in 2017 that he had been body-shamed by a female fan, who didn't realize he was within earshot. "She said I look like I have cancer," wrote Carter, who was playing a concert in Syracuse, New York at the time.
"I'm not ashamed of my body, maybe I'm too skinny, maybe I'm too short but the one thing I know is I love my fans my family my girlfriend and my friends," Carter wrote.
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David Harbour
In 2017, the "Stranger Things" star told TheWrap about an audition for the role of "The Blob" in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," in which the director said he was "worried about his health" after he jokingly lifted up his shirt. "I was like, ‘Wait a minute, dude, pause for one second,'” he added. “‘You are telling me I’m too fat to play The Blob? That’s awesome, I have to get the f--- back to New York.’ That’s my audition — so I didn’t get The Blob," he said.
Photographed by Elisabeth Caren for TheWrap
Sam Claflin
The "Hunger Games" star says that he feels pressure to be thin and fit, just like his female colleagues. "I get really worked up to the point where I spend hours and hours in the gym and not eating for weeks to achieve what I think they’re going for," he said in a 2017 interview with The Sunday Morning Herald.
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Grant Gustin
In an August 2018 Instagram post, "The Flash" star Grant Gustin clapped back at critics who said he looked “too thin.” "I’ve had 20+ years of kids and adults telling me or my parents I was too thin. I’ve had my own journey of accepting it. But there’s a double standard where it’s ok to talk s--- about a dudes body," he wrote. “I’m happy with my body and who I am and other kids who are built like me and thinner than me should be able to feel the same way.”
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Ben Affleck
After a 2018 New Yorker piece called “The Great Sadness of Ben Affleck,” that compared him to donut-loving Homer Simpson and described paparazzi photos with his “gut pooching outward," the former big-screen Batman tweeted a witty response. "I'm doing just fine. Thick skin bolstered by garish tattoos," he wrote.
"I've done numerous jobs where you're told to lose weight and get to the gym," the exceedingly fit star of "Game of Thrones" and "Bodyguard" told British Vogue in 2019, recalling people pinching his "fat rolls" and putting him in corset-like costumes. "I find myself with actor friends -- after we've done a kind of barely eating, working-out-twice-a-day, no-carbing thing for these scenes -- looking at each other going: 'We're just feeding this same s--- that we're against.'"
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Jason Momoa
In July 2019, a Twitter mob mocked the hunky "Aquaman" star for what they called a "dad bod" in a shirtless poolside photo while he was vacationing in Venice. "Oh, that's all right," he told TMZ of the comments later that month.
Women aren’t the only ones in Hollywood who deal with trolls
Hollywood is notorious for having unrealistic expectations when it stars' bodies. We're used to hearing stories about body shaming from women -- but here are some men who have also dealt with body-shaming trolls.
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