Exclusive: John Cena Wants To Do Duke Nukem Justice
Exclusive: John Cena talks about his approach to the announced Duke Nukem film adaptation, promising it’ll do the character justice.
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John Cena gave some details about his planned Duke Nukem film adaptation in a recent interview with Screen Rant. Born out to a different time (the early 1990s), the Duke Nukem franchise spawned nine video games and a comic book series over a 20-year period. For nearly twenty years however, one thing that the franchise has not been able to accomplish is to have a film pushed past the earliest stages of development. Producers Lawrence Kasanoff and Scott Faye have developed the IP over the years, but unlike other popular ’90s games including Resident Evil and Tomb Raider or even more recent games like Assassin’s Creed, nobody has been able to crack Duke Nukem…but there’s still hope!
Earlier this year, a rumor surfaced about another attempt to bring Duke Nukem to the big screen and that WWE superstar John Cena had entered into negotiations to star as the titular badass. While talking with Screen Rant about his new film, Blockers, Cena talked about his potential involvement with the long-gestating video game adaptation.
Related: Borderlands Movie In The Works Alongside Duke Nukem
Screen Rant: Video game movies are on the rise again. Tomb Raider is coming out. Duke Nukem is something you’ve been attached to and you look like Duke Nukem.
John Cena: I think that’s the direct attachment and I’m very honored to be attached to that but that is a very fragile franchise. That was one that was very timeline specific, that is 1990s to the hilt. So, once again, it reflects upon story. The story has to come in dead-on balls, man. Like it has to come in told correct, told in a palatable sense for this generation, which you’re walking on eggshells…you can’t not be Duke Nukem, but you can’t make the wrong move…so I’m…what a blessing to be attached to that, a name like that, and I just hope development does the franchise justice.
Cena has certainly been very selective of late as he builds his profile as an actor. In just a dozen years of acting, Cena, whose early films (12 Rounds, The Marine) were very reminiscent of the 1990’s action films Nukem will pay homage to, has developed what appears to be a nice collaborative relationship with Paramount Pictures, the studio developing this iteration of Duke Nukem. With cameos in both Daddy’s Home films and bigger role in the upcoming Transformers spinoff, Bumblebee, Cena’s trajectory as an actor seems to be on the rise.
Some of that upward trajectory could be due to Cena’s insistence that the projects he becomes involved in have strong stories that will appeal to a larger audience. Film adaptations of video games have certainly been hit or miss over the years and it’s clear that Cena is aware of that and working to make sure the version that we see on the big screen is true to the source material. To that end, fans may have to be patient while waiting to see Cena suit up as the alien-killing Nukem while the folks at Platinum Dunes, the Paramount subsidiary overseeing development and are still working on a script. For those not familiar with Platinum Dunes, it’s the studio that’s partially owned by Michael Bay, a man whose had plenty of experience developing crazy action films.
Interestingly enough, Duke Nukem isn’t the only retro project to which Cena is attached. Stay tuned for part two of our exclusive interview to find out more about the development of the 1980s TV series, Knight Rider, that Cena is looking to reboot on the big screen alongside Kevin Hart.
Screen Rant will keep you updated on Duke Nukem as more information becomes available.
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Link Source : https://screenrant.com/duke-nukem-movie-john-cena-details/