Hollywood has never fully realized his potential as an action hero, so it's always good to see Michael Jai White in movies that highlight what he does best – kick arse!

Oh, and he can act too.

White has signed on to star in what is expected to be an action movie franchise from Moonstone Entertainment, titled Codename: Falcon. The franchise will revolve around a former marine named John "Falcon" Chapman, described as a "dark anti-hero driven by guilt, who will destroy himself unless given something else to destroy," making him "a useful weapon-of-last-resort for the foreign ministry."

The first film in the franchise, titled Favela, is currently in pre-production.

What's Favela about? From Moonstone Entertainment:

The first movie, FAVELA, sees Chapman traveling to Brazil to hunt down his sister's killers, in the process discovering an underground world of drugs, prostitution, and police corruption ruled by the Japanese mafia.

Isaac Florentine (who's directed several straight-to-video action movies with *name* actors) will direct Favela. So I suppose we could assume that Favela will likely also be a straight-to-video release. 

We'll see…

Moonstone's plans are to produce about one Falcon movie a year, following Chapman as he is sent to exotic locations to do the foreign ministry's dirty work.

Shooting on Favela is planned to begin late this year.

White will next be seen on the big screen in Charlie Matthau's dramedy, Freaky Deaky.