Vin Diesel Confirms ‘Bloodshot’ Role

Avengers: Infinity War is not out yet, but Vin Diesel has apparently begun preparations for his next comic book adaptation — Valiant’s Bloodshot.

The actor has long been rumored to be attached to the property, but even after it became conventional wisdom that he would headline the first-ever theatrical release featuring a Valiant character, the actor has remained quiet…until today.

Earlier this evening, Diesel shared an image on Instagram featuring Bosslogic’s fan art of him in the Bloodshot role, along with the cryptic caption, “And so it begins….”

The film will reportedly film this summer, so it seems likely that rather than being the start of production, Diesel is simply letting the world know that the rumors are true, and that he’s getting ready for Bloodshot.

Bloodshot will star Vin Diesel in the title role as Ray Garrison, a super-soldier created by the secret government organization Project Rising Spirit.

Garrison’s powers come from “nanites,” which enter his bloodstream and give him a variety of powers, including the ability to recover from almost any trauma by consuming protein.

The process which gave him his powers also installed a number of implanted identities into Bloodshot‘s brain, creating a lasting identity crisis. For most of his publishing history, Bloodshot has not known his true identity, and has had no life outside of being Bloodshot. The current Bloodshot Reborn series, in which he tries (and mostly fails) to have a normal life, could easily be a major influence on the feature film, as it would ground the character somewhat.

The idea of the implanted identities was not to dehumanize him (although at times that provided some unexpected boons) but to give him personal motivations for each new mission.

His original purpose was to hunt down and capture or assassinate psiots — rogue superhumans with mental powers that had been developed as part of Project Rising Spirit. Eventually, he broke through his programming and set about trying to learn the truth about himself.

Created in 1992 by Kevin VanHook, Don Perlin, and Bob Layton, Bloodshot’s anonymous backstory likely owes something to Wolverine, who was also the product of a clandestine experiment that gave him a healing factor. Wolverine’s own past was largely unwritten at the time of Bloodshot’s creation. Agonizing about, and searching for, his true self was a major part of Wolverine’s story in the’ 90s.

When Valiant relaunched in 2012 after about a decade without new comics, Duane Swierczynski reinvented Bloodshot for the new line.

Jeff Wadlow and Eric Heisserer will write the film for directors David Leitch and Chad Stahelski. Little else is known about the project, although Jared Leto is reportedly in talks to play villain Angelo Mortalli. The hope is that Bloodshot will be successful enough to launch a trilogy of interconnected films, including the Project Rising Spirit-heavy Harbinger and Harbinger Wars.