Everyone’s favorite bald assassin is getting his second feature film, this one titled Hitman Agent 47, and distributor 20th Century Fox today put out the movie’s first trailer.
Set to an electronic remix of Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Voodoo Child’, the trailer depicts 47, played by Homeland star Rupert Friend, being interrogated by a government agent. After delivering a cringe-worthy “No, Mr. Sanders. You’re locked in here with me,” the trailer ramps up the action considerably, showing 47 taking out various foes in hand to hand combat . Cut in between all this are various shots of explosions, fast cars, guns blazing, and a helicopter crashing spectacularly into a building.
Of course, this might come off as a bit alarming to Hitman fans, considering that the series encourages stealthy gameplay and making assassinations look like accidents. Attempting hand to hand combat or fancy gunplay in any of the games often results in a messy death for Agent 47, so you really have to wonder if any of the filmmakers even played the stinking games.
This upcoming Hitman film was originally supposed to star Fast and Furious star Paul Walker in the lead role, but because of his tragic death, the job was given to Friend. Directorial duties are handled by one Aleksander Bach, whose credits mainly include car commercials. Sounds like the right man for the job of directing a film about the Silent Assassin himself, no?
The script is written by Skip Woods, who also wrote the script for the first 2007 Hitman movie, which starred Timothy Olyphant as 47. That movie, though financially successful, was critically savaged and was featured on Time’s 2008 top ten worst video game movies. So you see, it makes perfect sense that he’s been given the task of writing the script for Hitman Agent 47.
What little of the plot that can be gleaned from the trailer suggests that elements of the first game, Codename 47, will be at play. Apparently, 47 is on the warpath against a corporation that is seeking to create an army of clones just like him.
In the above trailer’s YouTube comments section, the highest rated comment, written in Russian, translates to: “Oh, damn, what kind of f***ing s**t???”
Fans of Hitman who would rather play as 47 rather than watch a car commercial director’s take on him can take comfort in the fact that IO Interactive are working on a new Hitman game, due to be revealed in detail sometime this year. IO have previously said that they intend to return to the the series’s gameplay roots, on the back of the disappointing Hitman Absolution.