Marc Forster To Direct 'Cowboy Ninja Viking' For Universal

You might recall, from a year and a half back, that Zombieland writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wenick were hired to script a film for Disney called Cowboy Ninja Viking. The project was based on the Image Comics work by AJ Lieberman and Riley Rossmo, and features warriors boasting multiple personalities, the better to be prepared to take on a variety of tasks.

As it turns out, the Reese and Wernick script wasn't quite family-friendly enough for Disney, which cut the project loose. But Cowboy Ninja Viking has found a new home at Universal, and Marc Forster could end up making it his follow-up to World War Z.

Deadline says that Forster is ready to make this one his next film, and that production could begin later this year.

Didn't Universal sorta try to stop making movies like this? If nothing else, that might say really good things about the script. The title is silly and the general concept is almost too strange for a studio film, but if Universal has a good script from the duo in hand, maybe we can be cautiously optimistic about the idea at least. With respect to Marc Forster, I'm not yet convinced that he's the guy for a film like this.

So what the hell is Cowboy Ninja Viking about? Here's the recap of the original comic:

Duncan is the result of a secret government program to create soldiers for the war on terror. This experimental regimen conscripts people suffering from multiple personality disorder and turns them into "triplets," highly lethal operatives possessing three distinct personalities drawing from warrior/tough guy archetypes. Duncan serves as the reader's entry point into a complex web of espionage and violence that grows more intriguing as we are let in on exactly what's up with Duncan, the people who want to drag him back into the fold, and the rest of the triplets that remain at large.