While Jason Statham has pushed more towards action in his film choices recently, he’s clearly still looking to nod back towards his Lock, Stock / Snatch days. Statham and producing partner Steve Chasman have snapped up the rights to J.J. Connolly’s novel Viva La Madness, the sequel to **Layer Cake.
As he did with Cake, Connolly is turning Madness into a script, with Statham looking to take over the nameless leading character role from Daniel Craig, who starred for Matthew Vaughn in 2004.
Despite ending up with a gunshot wound at the end of that film, the sequel will find our hero alive and pondering retirement, looking for somewhere warm and beach-tastic to spend the rest of his days. Instead, what he finds is a world of drug deals, money laundering, electronic fraud, London gangsters and cartels. Vaughn is not currently attached to the film, but if it does get made, it’ll be intriguing to see if Statham can pull off a character that utilised Craig’s particular charm so well.
Statham next has Homefront set for release on December 6 and has worked on The Expendables 3. He’s currently shooting the villain role in Fast & Furious 7.