Next up is Parker, the latest screen incarnation of Donald Westlake‘s fan-favorite antihero. (The books are written under his no-nonsense penname Richard Stark, and the character was previously seen on screens in variously altered forms in films like Point Blank, Payback and Full Contact.) Jason Statham is playing the lead and Jennifer Lopez is on board. Now Clifton Collins Jr. and Wendell Pierce have joined the cast, according to Variety. We don’t have their roles but they’re exactly the sort of reliable character actors I’d expect to see Taylor Hackford looking to as he fills out the cast.
John J. McLaughlin (Black Swan) wrote the script, and while early reports made the film sound like a new version of The Hunter, info on Jennifer Lopez’s character makes this appear to be in fact jumping off from the novel Flashfire. Here’s the plot of that one:
When Parker joins forces with three other crooks to rob a Nebraska bank, he’s prepared for a gentlemanly division of the proceeds, not for a double-cross. But his colleagues have other plans for his share: it will be their seed money for a $12 million Palm Beach jewel heist. What’s Parker to do but make his own plans to steal the Palm Beach loot from the double- crossers? Working his way across the Southeast in a series of carefully executed robberies and changes of identity, Parker arrives in Palm Beach, where he finds more barriers along the path of revenge than he could have imagined. Chief among them: a diabolically clever plan by his former partners; a real estate agent named Leslie with an unfortunately sharp sense of character; and a team of professional hit men out for Parker’s blood (but why?).
http://www.slashfilm.com/casting-bit...pierce-parker/
