Chris Pratt’s Cowboy Ninja Viking movie is officially coming to theaters in 2019.
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Cowboy Ninja Viking, a production coming from Universal, is a feature adaptation of writer A.J. Lieberman and artist Riley Rossmo’s Image Comics novel. Pratt is set to star in the film and will also produce with Mark Gordon, Michael De Luca, and Guymon Casady. A director for the project has not yet been announed.
Pratt’s character Riley is a unique type of assassin, possessing some of the most interesting and tough skill sets of three different personas: a cowboy, a ninja, and a viking.
Pratt’s casting was announced prior to Jurassic World‘s $1.67 billion worldwide haul, following his super hero debut as Star-Lord in 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy. The breakout role launched Pratt to mega-star status, earning him both a sequel to the Marvel Studios film and another go in dinosaur territory with a Jurassic sequel coming next year.
“Initially Riley [Rossmo] wanted to do something with a Dystopian near-future setting,” Lieberman said of writing Cowboy Ninja Viking comics. “And while I first started circling the character I tried shoe horning him into these very ‘cool’ locales. In fact I wrote two other pitch scripts based on this. This was before he was the [Cowboy Ninja Viking] we know. He was more like a cousin twice removed.”
The Cowboy Ninja Viking comic first printed in October of 2009, launching a 10 issue run through November of 2010. The run ended at Image Comics just weeks after the same publisher launched The Walking Dead books with Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard.
The release date for the film, June 28, 2019, slates Cowboy Ninja Viking against Paramount’s Transformers 7.
(via Deadline)
