Vin Diesel Leads 'Soldiers of the Sun'; Darren Aronofsky Eyes 'Red Sparrow'

* Well he's got Riddick coming up next month and he'll be voicing the plant creature Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy, and now Vin Diesel is making it a sci-ti trio by joining Soldiers of the Sun. Based on an original script by Arash Amel, who has Nicole Kidman starring in his Grace of Monaco, the film follows a group of soldiers in Mexico seeking a lost city of gold while battling an alien race of Orcs. The film is set up over at Universal, just as Diesel's Riddick and Fast & Furious franchises are, and the plan is to turn this into a series as well. We'll see how this develops and who they land as a director.


* So he passed on The Wolverine and decided on Biblical epic Noah instead, and now Darren Aronosky is looking to get stealthy for his next film. He's in talks to direct Red Sparrow, a spy film based on the fairly recent novel by CIA agent Jason Matthews. Here's the synopsis:

In present-day Russia, ruled by blue-eyed, unblinking President Vladimir Putin, Russian intelligence officer Dominika Egorova struggles to survive in the post-Soviet intelligence jungle. Ordered against her will to become a “Sparrow,” a trained seductress, Dominika is assigned to operate against Nathaniel Nash, a young CIA officer who handles the Agency’s most important Russian mole.

As the action careens between Russia, Finland, Greece, Italy, and the United States, Dominika and Nate soon collide in a duel of wills, tradecraft, and—inevitably—forbidden passion that threatens not just their lives but those of others as well. As secret allegiances are made and broken, Dominika and Nate’s game reaches a deadly crossroads. Soon one of them begins a dangerous double existence in a life-and-death operation that consumes intelligence agencies from Moscow to Washington, DC.

Page by page, veteran CIA officer Jason Matthews’s Red Sparrow delights, terrifies and fascinates, all while delivering an unforgettable cast, from a sadistic Spetsnaz “mechanic” who carries out Putin’s murderous schemes to the weary CIA Station Chief who resists Washington “cake-eaters”. Packed with insider detail, this novel brims with Matthews’s life experience of espionage, counterintelligence, spy recruitment, and cyber-warfare. Brilliantly composed, Red Sparrow is a masterful spy tale. Authentic, tense, and entertaining, this novel introduces Jason Matthews as a major new American talent.

There's no writer attached but with Steve Zaillian producing and Aronofsky potentially behind the camera, finding someone talented shouldn't be too tough.