Michael B. Jordan has signed on to play an ageless man in Warner Bros.’ upcoming film Methuselah. Jordan is coming off a busy year where he starred in big commercial hits like Creed II and the Oscar-winning Black Panther, as well as HBO’s Fahrenheit 451 TV movie.
Methuselah has been in development at WB for years now and was once intended to be a Tom Cruise vehicle. It had a director for a while in 2016, when Joachim Rønning (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales) signed on to call the shots from a script by Zach Dean (Deadfall). However, Rønning stepped away from the project sometime after that and has since gone on to direct Disney’s sequel Maleficent: Mistress of Evil instead. Cruise also left the movie at a certain point, in the process creating an opening for another A-list star to take his place.
Deadline is reporting that Jordan has now signed on to star in and produce Methuselah for WB. It’s the latest development in what’s been a pretty busy few weeks for the actor, who only just agreed to produce Kong: Skull Island director Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ new monster movie. Jordan is also set to star in and produce the Denzel Washington-directed memoir Journal for Jordan and is currently in pre-production on the Tom Clancy adaptation Without Remorse (which he will reportedly star in as John Clark).
The Methuselah movie gets its name from the Biblical figure, who was said to have lived to the age of 969. According to Deadline, the film’s script revolves around a man who’s already been alive for more than 400 years, yet shows no signs of physical wear and tear. It doesn’t sound like a straightforward Biblical retelling either, as the outlet compares its mythology to the Highlander series.
Jordan has generally made good choices with the studio films and would-be franchise starters that he’s signed on for (with the obvious exception of 2015’s Fantastic Four). He clearly sees the potential for Methuselah to be something worthwhile too, despite its ongoing struggle to take the next step forward. The Highlander movie reboot hasn’t had any luck landing a green-light either, even with John Wick 1-3 director Chad Stahelski attached to call the shots. On the other hand, that means the way is clear for Methuselah to go ahead and stake its claim as the only current tentpole about an immortal warrior. There can be only one, after all.
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We will bring you more details on Methuselah as they become available.
Source: Deadline
