Skip to main content

Fox takes another shot at a Hitman movie with ‘Agent 47’ starring Paul Walker

Timothy Olyphant as Agent 47 in HitmanAgent 47 is getting a second shot at the big time. After six years away from the gaming world, Square-Enix released Hitman: Absolution last fall to strong reviews and moderate sales. But while the franchise came back in a big way in 2012, it’s now been nearly six years since the last time Hitman graced the silver screen. Not wanting to waste momentum built by Absolution, Fox International Pictures will make another Hitman movie, hoping once again to start a film franchise.

Deadline reported on Wednesday that Fox has greenlit the rebooting of  Agent 47. The creative team putting the movie together is largely unproven. It will be commercial director Aleksander Bach’s first major motion picture. Handling the script is Michael Finch and Skip Woods, whose most recent credit is the unreleased A Good Day to Die Hard. Timothy Olyphant who starred in the previous Hitman film will not be returning. 

Related Videos

Not unfamiliar with donning sharp suits and shaving his head, The Fast and the Furious star Paul Walker will play the titular assassin.

IO Interactive’s Hitman series has had a rough time over the past few years. The series was a staple of the PlayStation 2 console generation, but following the release of Hitman: Blood Money in 2006, it went into hibernation while the studio worked on its critically reviled Kane & Lynch series. A 2007 motion picture adaptation helped bring the series back into the limelight, though. Hitman, starring Olyphant (Justified) and Olga Kurylenko (Quantum of Solace), was by all accounts an abysmal movie with a Rotten Tomatoes aggregate rating of 14-percent. It was also financially successful. Hitman was made on a slim budget for a would-be blockbuster, an estimated $24 million. By 2009, it had grossed approximately $128 million in worldwide ticket and DVD sales.

Despite the fact that Square-Enix expressed disappointment with Hitman: Absolution’s roughly 3 million in global sales during the holidays, the game publisher has already stated that it plans to continue developing the franchise. In fact, in order to keep the series releasing on an annual schedule, Deus Ex: Human Revolution studio Square-Enix Montreal plans to develop new Hitman games in tandem with IO Interactive. “It’s like with Treyarch and Infinity Ward,” said series director Tore Blystad in November, “You have an IP that has been developed. They will feed off each other, as well as [have] some things that stand out. I think with these big franchises it takes time to develop just one game. If you can work a little bit in parallel at least and help each other out.”

Editors' Recommendations

Hitman’s second chapter arrives on April 26th, new challenges out today
hitman episode 2 premieres april 26 hitmanep2 thumb

The next chapter in IO Interactive's episodic assassination sim Hitman will premiere on April 26th for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC platforms, publisher Square Enix announced this week.

To tide players over until the launch of next month's episode, IO Interactive has released a multiplatform content update for Hitman introducing 10 new in-game challenges alongside a range of bugfixes and tweaks.

Read more
Hitman is still coming out in March, but as an episodic game
agent 47 returns in square enixs newest hitman announcement image2 1434443796

The upcoming sixth entry in the Hitman series, simply titled Hitman, has been restructured and will be released in an episodic format, publisher Square Enix announced Thursday.

The news comes just a day after Sony cancelled all pre-orders for the PlayStation 4 version of the game made through the PlayStation Store because of changes to the game’s “Configuration.” Many retailers, including the PlayStation Store and Square Enix’ online store, changed or removed the game’s projected release date Thursday morning.

Read more
Hitman PS4 pre-orders cancelled on PSN over ‘configuration’ changes
hitman episodic game announced

Updated on 1-14-16 by Mike Epstein: Publisher Square Enix announced Thursday that Hitman will now be released as a six-part episodic experience, rather than a single game. The "Introduction Pack," which includes a prologue and opening missions will be released March 11, rather than the full game. Stay tuned for the full story.

Sony has cancelled all pre-order sales of Hitman on PlayStation 4 Wednesday due to unspecified changes to "the configuration" of the game. Customers who pre-ordered the game were notified of the cancellation with a message sent through PSN. According to Polygon, the message matched a statement released on Sony's technical support forums.
"Thank you for pre-ordering Hitman. The publisher has notified us that the configuration of the product you pre-ordered has changed significantly. As a result we have withdrawn the current pre-order from PlayStation Store and will cancel all pre-orders. You will receive an email confirmation when your pre-order has been cancelled. A revised pre-order for Hitman will be available on the store soon"
The pre-order page for Hitman on the PlayStation Store seems to have been restored as of Thursday morning, though the release date has been pushed back from March 11 to December 30, 2016. The Square Enix Store listed the release date of the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game as December 31, though the PC and PS4 download versions were still set for the official March release date.

Read more