If the world as we know it ends, I am definitely not going to be thinking about the Mona Lisa. But according to Deadline, in the upcoming film Afterburn, “an unhinged warlord” is doing just that.
Afterburn is based on the Red 5 comics by Scott Chitwood and Paul Ens. The summary for the first comic explains:
A year ago, a massive solar flare destroyed the Earth’s eastern hemisphere with the power of a thousand nuclear bombs. But amid chaos, there’s profit. That’s where Jake comes in, retrieving valuable items from the remains – when he can outwit the competition and the mutated locals!
In the movie adaptation, Deadline notes, the solar flare was 10 years ago. Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy, pictured above) will play Jake, an ex-soldier “who works as a treasure hunter recovering valuable objects from the old world for powerful clients.” He’ll be joined by Samuel L. Jackson, playing “freedom fighter Valentine.”
This all sounds positively ridiculous, and like it could be a very good time if no one takes themselves too seriously. The movie has J.J. Perry as director; Perry just directed Bautista in The Killer’s Game, and has done a ton of work in stunts and as stunt coordinator on everything from The Fate of the Furious to Shadow and Bone. So at least the action should be very, very entertaining. Writer Matt Johnson was behind the poorly received 2005 Paul Walker film Into the Blue; Nimrod Antal (a director on Stranger Things) did revisions on the Afterburn screenplay.
Afterburn will begin filming in April, so it’ll be a while before we get to see what this all adds up to.
