Looks like the Hurt Locker is paying off royally for Anthony Mackie.

While he lost the Bourne lead to his former co-star Jeremy Renner, he’s just been offered to star opposite Brad Pitt in World War Z and is being eyed for a role in Warner Brother‘s Gangster Squad alongside Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling and Josh Brolin.

With Marc Foster set to direct, Word War Z is based on the post-apocalyptic horror novel by Max Brooks. The story is set 10 years after a global zombie epidemic and is an oral history told from various perspectives. It’s a collection of individual accounts in the form of first-person anecdotes. In the book, Brooks plays the role of an agent of the United Nations Postwar Commission who publishes a report a decade after the Zombie War. The interviews chart a decade-long war against zombies from the view point of many different people of various nationalities. The personal accounts also describe the changing religious, geo-political, and environmental aftermath of the Zombie War.

Mackie, who is currently filming Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, is set next to star alongside Hugh Jackman in DreamWorks Real Steel as well as suspense thriller Man on a Ledge with Sam Worthington. Afterwards, he’ll then be appearing with Channing Tatum in Ten Year.

Gangster Squad, directed by Ruben Fleischer, is a period crime film based on a seven-part Los Angeles Times article written by Paul Lieberman that details how, during 1940s corruption and chaos, the LAPD created a special unit called the “Gangster Squad” to prevent the East Coast mafia from infecting the city.

Mackie’s star is certainly rising and with his commitment to star in indie fare flicks like he did with Night Catches Us, Bolden! and Desert Flower…things can only get better for him.

(Variety)