What's with Vince Vaughn and the action movie turn he's taken all of a sudden? Ignoring this weekend's sci-fi comedy, The Watch, and The Internship with buddy Owen Wilson, the latest projects Vaughn has added to his slate will have him firing off more bullets than one-liners. Just last week he signed up for the action flick, Gunslingers, with Randall Wallace directing. And now Deadline reports he's scooped up the rights to Ridley Pearson's book, The Risk Agent, with plans to produce and star in it for Universal.
The book has a fairly intriguing premise, as it deals largely in the confining nature of Chinese politics. Vaughn would be playing John Knox, an American outsider brought in to investigate the disappearance of a Chinese businessman in Shanghai. Knox knows the city inside and out, and is gifted with expert hand-to-hand combat skills. He'll be working alongside Grace Chu, a forensic accountant with ties to the missing man. As if finding a single person in a sea of 20 million folks isn't hard enough, China has outlawed private investigation within their borders. Oops.
With no writer or director attached yet, it may be awhile before we see this in theaters. I'm curious to see whether this gets underway before or after Vaughn turns up for the remake of the Canadian comedy hit, Starbuck.
