Vin Diesel’s Bloodshot may have bombed at the box office after releasing just when the Coronavirus pandemic was starting to reach crisis point before becoming available for digital download two weeks later, but the Valiant Cinematic Universe is still very much on the cards. However, the Fast & Furious figurehead might not be a part of it for much longer, with rumors already circulating that Bloodshot could be rebooted with somebody else in the lead.
Valiant don’t seem to have been swayed from attempting to build an interconnected universe of movies though, and have reportedly set their sights incredibly high with the likes of Dwayne Johnson and Will Smith said to be on their wish-list, while John Cena teased his involvement as X-O Manowar on social media after it was reported that the wrestler-turned-actor was under consideration for the role.
In a recent interview, Valiant chief Dan Mintz confirmed that the VCU is still their focus, and in what seems like a deliberate move to rile up fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he claimed that the upstart franchise wants to take inspiration from noted enemy of the comic book movie Martin Scorsese.
“You watch one of his movies like Goodfellas or Casino, you feel like you’ve lived a lifetime. You can see why these characters make the decision there because you’re seeing them in that environment. They’re not good or bad or right or wrong. They just are. You almost suspend judgment at a certain time and I think it’s very real. I think there’s something about that, that we can relate to. It hits a different timber in you and attracts you in a different way. I believe it’s in a time right now when everything’s so big and over the top in a certain respect.”
Obviously, the legendary director of The Irishman sent the internet into meltdown when he very publicly bashed Marvel movies, even though it shouldn’t come as much surprise that a 77 year-old man doesn’t care much for CGI-heavy superhero action. That being said, Bloodshot didn’t exactly herald a brave new dawn for the genre, either.
It felt like a relic from a bygone era and brought nothing new or exciting to the screen that we hadn’t already seen a thousand times before, and by comparing his plans for the franchise to the works of Scorsese, Mintz has only given fans of the MCU a reason to start sharpening their knives already.
