For almost 5 years now, there has been talk of doing a Spy Hunter movie based on the popular arcade game from the 1980’s. For some reason, the film has never quite managed to get off the ground at Universal; suffering through rewrite after rewrite, and proposed director John Woo eventually abandoned it to return to his roots back in Hong Kong. Since early on, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson had also been signed on to star, and this was really the only selling point that the project ever had. In 2006, Midway even released an Xbox and PS2 game called Spy Hunter: Nowhere To Run that featured The Rock’s likeness, intended to be a tie-in for a movie that wasn’t yet in production. Alas, now it appears that The Rock has had enough, and he’s decided to jump ship as well.

In an interview with Paul W.S. Anderson, the film’s new director, he confirmed that The Rock is no longer a part of the project. Either his contract expired, or he simply moved on to bigger and better things. Regardless, it’s probably a good thing for The Rock, but I have to wonder why they’d even continue moving forward with the film at this point. I was never sold on the concept to begin with; even though I used to love the game and a Spy Hunter movie would give you an excuse to showcase a cool tricked out sports car, I don’t know that there could ever be a decent story behind it no matter how many rewrites you do. It just seems like a movie that was doomed from the start, and now that they’ve lost their main star I say they should can it for good. However, if they absolutely must continue to move ahead with it, I think I have the perfect replacement in mind: Vin Diesel. Come on, you know it’s bound to happen one way or another!