Jonathan Majors has been cast to lead the revenge thriller “Merciless,” which is based on an original screenplay by Frank Hannah. Martin Villeneuve, the younger brother of Denis, will direct. A fall shoot in Saskatchewan is being eyed.
Merciless follows a top CIA interrogator who, after the woman he loves is overtaken by a malevolent force, is forced to go even darker to defeat it.
The film will mark Majors’ first role since his third-degree assault and harassment conviction earlier this year. He last starred in the well-reviewed Sundance indie, “Magazine Dreams,” which still hasn’t been released by Searchlight.
The younger Villeneuve is best known for his sci-fi film “Mars et Avril,” which garnered him Canadian Screen Award nomination in 2013 for Best Adapted Screenplay. He also directed 2022’s “The 12 Tasks of Imelda.” Villeneuve previously worked for Cirque du Soleil as an artistic director for commercials and films.
The project was developed by producer Christopher Tuffin, who played a huge role revving up last year’s “Sound of Freedom”. He has been dubbed as a “disruptor.” In Tuffin’s own words, he “refuses to let the court of public opinion and selective prosecution undermine great art and artists.”
Tomorrow, Majors is supposed to receive the “Perseverance Award” at the Unlocked awards in Los Angeles. I’m still not sure if cameras will be filming this, but I hope we get some footage of Majors’ acceptance speech.
Majors’s once-promising career was recently derailed after having been convicted of reckless assault and harassment in December. He was sentenced to a 52-week, in-person domestic violence intervention program in April. The case, which had been extensively reported on, for many months now, involved an altercation Majors had with his girlfriend in March of 2023.
Majors was supposed to reprise his role as Kang in the next ‘Avengers’ flick but was fired from the role in February after being found guilty. Since his exit, there was speculation that Marvel was going to drop the Kang character altogether, or simply recast. They retitled the upcoming ‘Avengers: Kang Dynasty’ to just ‘Avengers 5,’ most likely a working title.
While James L. Brooks teased last year that "we'll soon be seeing" Jack Nicholson, 89, act again, and that he was "reading scripts," that idea has now been shut down by his close friend Michael Douglas, 82.