The most honest assessment of 2007’s video game assessment Hitman came from no less of an authority than star Timothy Olyphant, who called the console adaptation “a pile of sh*t”, and admitted he’d only signed on because Deadwood had been canceled and he’d just bought a house. Incredibly, the original was essentially The Godfather compared to reboot Agent 47.
Whereas Olyphant’s sole stint as the bald-headed assassin netted a 16 percent Rotten Tomatoes score and earned $101 million at the box office, replacement Rupert Friend’s attempt to reinvigorate the franchise nobody was asking for couldn’t soar any higher than eight percent on the aggregation site, while it brought in almost $20 million less from theaters despite costing more to produce.
Unbelievably, there were tentative plans in place for yet another Hitman feature film before Disney acquired 20th Century Fox, because nothing indicates audiences are ready to see more than two universally-panned failures that were openly blasted by the very same people who made them. Thankfully, it didn’t come to fruition, but there is a streaming series lurking somewhere in development hell.
This time around, the suit-wearing hired killer sets off to thwart the plans of a nefarious corporation who plan to create an army of superpowered soldiers derived from 47’s own shady origins. Many bodies drop, many bullets fly, but you most definitely will not care in the slightest. Unless you’re an iTunes customer, it would seem.
Per FlixPatrol, the Hitman reboot we didn’t need but got anyway has landed a spot on the platform’s worldwide watch-list, which is nothing if not an unusual way to waste 96 minutes of your life.