In the Punch Drunk Critics pantheon of all-time great action movies, District B13 ranks pretty damn high. The debut feature by Luc Besson protege Pierre Morel, who would go on to direct Taken, the film brought the wall-jumping art of parkour into the spotlight, led by acrobatic star David Belle. We've known for a couple of years that an American remake was in the works, which would bring back Belle and possibly star Paul Walker, but now we know the film is definitely happening. Not only that, Walker will indeed be headlining it. Oh joy.
Relativity has picked up the rights to the film, retitled Brick Mansions, with yet another Besson protege in Camille Delamarre directing. Delamarre edited the Zoe Saldana-thriller, Colombiana, which Besson co-wrote with Robert Mark Kamen. They'll reunite to script the remake, as well, which follows a cop (Walker) who teams up with a local vigilante (Belle) to retrieve a stolen nuclear weapon from a ghetto crimelord. A less-successful sequel was released a few years ago titled District 13: Ultimatum.
And suddenly, Paul Walker seems to be quite the franchise dude. He's still playing the boring dude in the Fast & Furious series, while recently taking on the Hitman reboot, Agent 47. What was so great about District B13 was that both lead actors were physical, agile fighters which kept the pace always at a high level. Walker won't be able to come close to matching Belle in that regard. This is pretty much bad news all the way around. [Deadline]
