Michael B. Jordan to play an assassin named Columbus

By Sam Barsanti | October 17, 2018 | 7:32pm

Aux Features Film

Everybody in Hollywood these days must want their own John Wick-style action franchise, since it’s a good way to make their personal brand a bit cooler without having to do much real work beyond learning some gun kata tricks. Despite the fact that he’s already pretty cool, Michael B. Jordan is now set to get an action franchise of his own, with Deadline reporting that he’s set to star in as a legendary assassin named Columbus in an adaptation of Wanted screenwriter Derek Haas’ The Silver Bear book series. The hope, obviously, is that this first movie will be a “franchise launch” for Lionsgate and Jordan.

As Deadline explains it, Columbus is called a “Silver Bear” by Russian criminals because “he never fails” and is “immune to the stresses of his work,” but his weirdly stress-free murder-job goes off the rails when he’s assigned to assassinate the Speaker Of The House, a man who happens to be a leading presidential candidate and—hold for dramatic pause—his father.