Former Guardians of the Galaxy and The Walking Dead star Michael Rooker is headed to what might be another movie franchise. According to Deadline, Rooker has been cast in a leading role for the film Monster Problems.
Rooker joins Dylan O’Brien from The Maze Runner in the film that is being positioned as a potential franchise. Monster Problems will tell the story of an expert hunter named Clyde (played by Rooker) who teaches Joel Dawson (O’Brien) how to survive the literal Monster Apocalypse — the script from Brian Duffield and Matthew Robinson is set as a coming-of-age story in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by monsters.
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Monster Problems is set to be directed by Michael Matthews (Five Fingers for Marseilles) with Shawn Levy producing at 21 Laps.
Monster Problems is just the latest project announced for Rooker. Back in January it was announced that Rooker had signed on for Sony Pictures and Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island. A big screen adaptation of the ABC series that starred Ricardo Montalbán and ran from 1977 to 1984 on ABC, Fantasy Island will also star Michael Peña as Mr. Roarke, leading a cast now consisting of Charlotte McKinney (Baywatch), Parisa Fitz-Henley (Luke Cage) and Austin Stowell (12 Strong). Plot details for Fantasy Island have not yet been released, though according to Deadline production on the film has just wrapped.
Rooker is best known to many fans as the one-armed hillbilly Merle Dixon on The Walking Dead and as the blue-skinned space pirate Yondu in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Currently, Rooker is appearing opposite Mahershala Ali in the third season of HBO’s True Detective.
“Before The Walking Dead, a few of the jobs before that were just like, ‘Ugh.’ I try and make everything as creative as possible, even when I get the script and can’t imagine what I’m going to do with it. I was ecstatic when The Walking Dead came along. Merle Dixon was so perfectly adapted for me,” Rooker told Paste Magazine in 2017.
“My casting director friends — who I’ve known since Days of Thunder — called me about the role. They said, ‘Michael, I have this role that is absolutely written for you. It’s about this redneck, racist guy that I know you can play very well. He’s such a d—k that they cuff him to the rooftop. And he’s such a crazy mofo that he cuts his own hand off.’ The dude has the balls to cut his own hand off and walk away? That’s me! Where do I sign?
“They pushed and stood up for me to get the role, even when other guys were considered for the part. Thank God I did it, because it was such a great, amazing boost for my career. The Walking Dead has truly been a dream come true for me. I’m still friends with all the people on the show, and it really does still feel like a family.”
Monster Problems does not yet have a release date.
