Between The Grand Budapest Hotel, A Most Wanted Man and cult action favorite John Wick, last year proved to be an excellent twelve months for veteran actor Willem Dafoe, and going off of the star’s recent streak, 2015 looks set to be no different. With parts in My Hindu Friend not to mention voicework on Pixar sequel Finding Dory already in the pipeline, Dafoe has boarded Zhang Yimou’s upcoming mercenary thriller The Great Wall in an unspecified role.
That’s according to the Hollywood Reporter, who brought news of the casting late last night. As things stand, Dafoe will now star opposite Matt Damon, who joined the project last year to fill the boots of a soldier tasked with bringing gunpowder back to Europe. However, all is now what it seems when the character and his squadron are ambushed by a group of foul, mythical beasts, leaving only Damon and Dafoe’s men left alive.
Yimou penned the script along with Max Brooks, best known for his critically-adorned zombie novel World War Z. For The Great Wall, however, it’s understood that the film will offer up a slice of revisionist history about China’s famous monument, and why it was erected in the first place (we’re going to make an educated guess and place the blame on those aforementioned, malicious beasts). Having once been attached to direct the project himself, Ed Zwick is now no board to assist with the screenplay, alongside Marshall Herskovitz and Bourne‘s Tony Gilroy.
Production will look to get underway at some point in April, when the cast and crew will make way for China. In the meantime, let us know what you make of Dafoe’s casting in The Great Wall via the comments.