I’d left it for dead after following the revolving door of directors and screenwriters hopping on and off this train, over a year after the initial news of its launch. 

Last we wrote anything about it, was in March-2011 (on the old S&A site, before we joined Indiewire), when it was announced the director F. Gary Gray was no longer attached to direct it. 

But let’s back up for a moment… follow the bouncing ball… 

Initially, Simon Crane was hired to direct Lionsgate’s adaptation of the video game, Kane & Lynch, with Bruce Willis and Jamie Foxx attached to star, but he dropped out due to “creative differences” with the studio.

Then, F. Gary Gray was approached by Lionsgate to helm the project. But Gray eventually moved on for what may have been similar reasons as Crane’s.

Then the job was then offered to Wayne Kramer; but it was later announced that he was no longer in the running.

Soon thereafter, it was announced that F. Gary Gray was back in the picture, once again, and was in talks with Lionsgate to direct the film.

However, some days later, it was reported that Gray was OFF the project, yet again, and Lionsgate was in talks with Patrick Alessandrin (District 13: Ultimatum) to take over the project, and in addition, the original script written by Kyle Ward had gone through a rewrite by Skip Woods (The A-Team, X-Men Origins: Wolverine). 

Shooting was scheduled to begin in September of 2010; but that obviously didn’t happen with all the above changes. And I’d written the project off for dead, when, still in 2011, in a report on the project by IGN, Jamie Foxx, apparently still attached to star in the film, addressed the status of the project, stating:

“We’re doing a couple of rewrites but we’re still doing it. And it should be a lot of fun, a lot of action.”

The original cast was to feature Bruce Willis playing the mercenary Kane, with Jamie Foxx playing the “rage-prone killer” Lynch.

In the game the film will be based on, Kane and Lynch are forced to pair up and have 72 hours to travel the world and recover a doomsday device before Kane’s kidnapped wife and daughter are killed by the criminals who broke them out of prison.

The original Kane & Lynch game, which was released in 2007, is said to have contained over-the-top violence and profanity. I assume the film won’t be rated PG-13 then.

With Butler and Diesel now potentially replacing Willis and Foxx, Butler would play Kane, while Diesel would be Lynch.

Director F. Gary Gray’s last feature film directorial effort was was 2009’s Law Abiding Citizen. Since then he’s been attached to a Marvin Gaye biopic, and a film adaptation of the graphic novel The Last Days Of American Crime, with first Sam Worthington, and then Noomi Rapace attached to star. There was also the N.W.A. biopic, which I haven’t seen an update for in a long while.

But all these talent changes both in front of and behind the camera for Kane & Lynch don’t bode too well for the film. But we’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?