Sony and Valiant's Bloodshot Shortlist Is Packed With Hollywood A-Listers

There is a short list of actors being considered for Dave Wilson's upcoming Bloodshot movie, and it's clear Sony and Valiant are looking to spend some big money on casting the start of Valiant's cinematic universe.

TheWrap claims that Sony's list has eight names on it, and five of them -- Mark Wahlberg, James McAvoy, Oscar Isaac, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Nicholas Hoult -- have been leaked to give a sense for what Sony might be looking for.

While rumor stories of this nature are always a crapshoot, Valiant rumors often get soft confirmation by Valiant CEO Dinesh Shamdasani, who is prone to sharing them on social media. Shamdasani retweeted TheWrap's story.

The story stressed, "that the actors are on the wish list doesn't necessarily mean Sony is in talks with them," and no one involved with the story officially commented for the piece.

Three of the five named actors are part of Fox's X-Men film universe, and the other two have been evasive in the past about their interest in working on superhero projects.

Of course, Bloodshot isn't a traditional superhero film.

"The Bloodshot film has more in common with Terminator and Robocop and Total Recall, than it does superhero fare," Shamdasani recently said. "[It has] a superhero at the center of it, but all of the other iconography, the tropes, the conventions the trappings of the film are in a different genre than I think people would expect from Bloodshot."

Wilson, who used to work with the Deadpool directors at Blur Studios, is set to make his feature-length directorial debut with Bloodshot. Shamdasani stressed at a recent convention appearance that a release date for Bloodshot would be in flux until further progress was made on the film. If things go as planned, the executive said a more concrete date could be announced as soon as this summer.

Published by Valiant, the Bloodshot comic follows its eponymous lead who is a former soldier gifted hi-tech regenerations powers. Bloodshot was subjected to tests which made him into an ultimate soldier as his blood was filled with powerful nanites, giving him the ability to heal, harness technopathy skills, and even shape shift. However, Bloodshot comes to resent the procedures and vows to get revenge on those who turned him into the man he has become.

Bloodshot is expected to make his live-action debut in Ninjak vs. the Valiant Universe, a forthcoming webseries project starring Michael Rowe as the title lead.