'Wheelman' Video Game to Hit Big Screen

Vin Diesel will get behind the wheel, again

BY EMIL TIEDEMANN

Fresh off the success of the fourth Fast & Furious movie, 41-year-old Vin Diesel will soon portray Milo Burik in a live action film adaptation of the multi-platform video game Wheelman (Ubisoft/ Midway Games). Paramount Pictures has pushed the project into high gear following Furious' box office success.

A digitalized version of the action star already appears in the top-rated game (released March 2009), and appears on its cover as well, reading Vin Diesel: Wheelman, which he also produced.

Set in the city of (or similar to) Barcelona, Spain, the game has Burik as a man who comes out of retirement in order to rescue a woman from his past. The development of the film had actually been announced back in February 2006, at the same time a game effort was committed.

Oscar-nominated director John Singleton (2 Fast 2 Furious) is set to helm the project, with Lorenzo di Bonaventura (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen) as co-producer (alongside Diesel and partner Samantha Vincent), and Rich Wilkes (xXx) as screenwriter. Wilkes' script was later reworked by Oliver Butcher (Dr. Jekyll & Ms. Hyde) and Stephen Cornwell (Killing Streets).

Filming on Wheelman has not yet begun, and a release date is still unavailable. Diesel is also currently in the production stages of sequels to the xXx (2002) and Chronicles of Riddick (2004) franchises.

Fast & Furious Makes it Four

Diesel & Walker reunite for the Furious franchise's latest offering

BY EMIL TIEDEMANN

Eight years after Rob Cohen's street racing film The Fast & the Furious (2001) hit summer theatres, Justin Lin directs the original cast in a new high-octane "interquel," the fourth installment in this popular film series.

Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, and Jordana Brewster have returned for Fast & Furious (notice the subtly different title), which picks up where the 2001 film left off--hence the film's slogan "New Model, Old Parts"--forgetting that the last two Furious movies even exsisted. This marks the first time that all four stars share the screen together since '01, when The Fast & the Furious became a surprise hit around the world, and making a household name out of Diesel, who has starred in a string of failures over the last few years.

Diesel rehashed his role as L.A. street racer and ex-con Dominic Toretto, who finds himself reuniting with just-released-from-prison-former-agent Brian O'Conner (Walker), in order to combat a common enemy, meanwhile pondering each other's loyality. They find themselves working alongside the feds to bring down a heroin operation, and doing it in fashion, steering some expensive and exotic muscle cars through California and Mexico.

Diesel refused to appear in John Singleton's 2003 sequel 2 Fast 2 Furious (he also turned down a sequel to his XXX film), though Walker opted to continue his role as O'Conner, with a supporting cast that included model-turned-actor Tyrese Gibson, former soap opera actress Eva Mendes, and hip-hop star Ludacris.

The sequel proved an even bigger success worldwide, though the same couldn't be said for a third effort, 2006's The Fast & the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Lin also directed Tokyo Drift, though it featured a whole new cast of actors (Lucas Black, Sung Kang, and rapper Bow Wow), and fizzled at the box office. Diesel made a small cameo in Drift, which had nothing to do with its predecessors, plot-wise.

The Furious series, which has always been associated with hip-hop music (Ja Rule made his feature film debut in the 2001 original), perserved the tradition with this latest feature, which includes cameos by Xzibit, Lil' Wayne, T.I., and T-Pain, while Gibson and Kang also make appearances. The soundtrack will also feature some big names in hip-hop, including Busta Rhymes, Pitbull, Soulja Boy, and The Neptunes.

With an $80 million budget, Fast & Furious is expected to do well when it hits theatres this Friday (April 3), but has a lot to live up to. The previous three films have grossed a combined $600 million in global ticket sales, and millions more in merchandise. Below is Universal Pictures' trailer for Fast & Furious.