Matthew Fox Gets Villain Role In 'I, Alex Cross;' Ed Burns Also Cast

James Patterson's Alex Cross character was brought to the screen by Morgan Freeman in two films, Kiss the Girls and Along Came A Spider. Now there is a reboot of the character being assembled at QED. Rob Cohen will direct an adaptation of I, Alex Cross with Tyler Perry playing the psychologist/detective that appears in over a dozen novels.

Now I, Alex Cross has a bad guy: Matthew Fox will make his first big screen appearance following the end of Lost as Michael Sullivan, "who kills both for money and thrills." Ed Burns has also signed on to the film, and will play Tommy Kane, partner to Alex Cross.

Deadline has the scoop, saying that Matthew Fox's character is (possible spoilers here) "known as the Butcher of Sligo and shows why after Cross thwarts one of his killing attempts. Sullivan makes his retribution personal, by killing the  detective's wife in gruesome fashion. Then it becomes a mano a mano battle between them."

We don't know who'll distribute this one. Paramount put out the previous to Alex Cross films featuring Morgan Freeman, and has shown interest in this new film. But Tyler Perry has done a lot of work with LionsGate, which has made a good amount of money from his Madea films. Deadline says a distribution deal is imminent.

Here's the Publisher's Weekly review of I, Alex Cross thanks to Amazon.

Bestseller Patterson offers nothing new on a theme he himself has already done to death in his 16th novel featuring detective Alex Cross (after Cross Country), in which Cross takes on yet another barbaric serial killer, this one known as Zeus. Word that an estranged 24-year-old niece, Caroline Cross, has been murdered disturbs Cross's birthday party. To make that horror even worse, the killer fed Caroline's body through a wood chipper. Cross soon discovers that Caroline supported herself as a high-price escort for Washington, D.C.'s elite, and that other women who served similar clients have turned up missing. Cross's investigation soon attracts the attention of the feds, and he concludes that Zeus is better connected than most of the psychopaths he's brought to justice. A subplot centering on a health threat to another member of Cross's family adds padding. Readers expecting the killer to be identified through insightful profiling will be disappointed.