The Valiant Comics cinematic universe has had a rough start. Vin Diesel’s Bloodshot had a disastrous opening weekend, which put the whole future of the project in doubt. In its defense, arriving just before the Coronavirus pandemic didn’t do it any favors at the box office and cinemas closing soon afterwards gave it a box office run measured in hours rather than weeks. The film quickly became available digitally and it isn’t half bad, and it seems the producers are intent on continuing on with Valiant’s stable of heroes, too, as John Cena is teasing an announcement about him playing X-O Manowar.
While nothing has been officially announced yet, Cena posted a picture of the hero on his Instagram feed without a caption. From scanning through his feed, the former wrestling champion and future star of F9 isn’t in the habit of posting obscure 90s superheroes to social media, so I’d expect confirmation very soon. Not to mention that WGTC told you he’s going to be playing the character several days ago, so this would seem to confirm our scoop.
If you’re unfamiliar with X-O Manowar, the concept is that a Roman-era warrior named Aric is abducted by aliens and turned into a slave. Unfortunately for them, he’s an almighty badass, breaks free, slaughters the slavemasters and steals a suit of armor.
Said armor is one of the alien race’s most prized relics, gives him crazy superpowers and allows him to rocket back to Earth. Unfortunately, space-time dilation means he arrives in the modern day and he soon realizes all of his family and friends are long dead. He goes on to struggle to fit into the present day while battling aliens eager to win back their relics.
It’s a neat story and should make for a decent film. Cena should be a good fit for the role, too. Before then, though, he’ll be appearing in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, where rumor has it he’ll be playing Peacemaker. If this goes ahead, it’ll be his biggest role yet and could be the part that breaks him out of the ‘wrestler doing a bit of acting’ stereotype and establishes him as a full-on movie star. Fingers crossed.
