Vin Diesel plays a former marine-turned biotech enhanced superhero in the trailer for Bloodshot. Although it’s not as well known as Marvel or DC outside of the comic book fan community, Valiant Comics has made a name for itself over the years with IPs like Harbinger and Ninjak. The publisher is now in the process of turning its titles into TV shows, web series, and movies, including next year’s Bloodshot.
Adapted for the screen by writers Eric Heisserer (Arrival, Bird Box) and Jeff Wadlow (Kick-Ass 2, Truth or Dare), Bloodshot marks the directing debut for VFX supervisor Dave Wilson (Avengers: Age of Ultron), and has the potential to launch an entire Sony-Valiant cinematic universe that features most of the publisher’s brands, save for Harbinger (which only just moved to Paramount in September). So, in order to improve its odds of success, the studio is getting the movie’s marketing up and running in time for the beginning of the 2019 fall holiday season.
The Bloodshot trailer is now online (courtesy of Sony Pictures), and will screen with films like Terminator: Dark Fate in theaters over the forthcoming weeks. You can check it out, below.
The trailer introduces Diesel as Ray Garrison, a soldier who was killed alongside his wife, Gina (Talulah Riley), only to be resurrected and enhanced with super-strength and super-healing through nanotechnology by the RST corporation. However, as this Bloodshot preview is quick to establish, Ray’s memories are not only fragmented, they’re also being intentionally altered by RST to fool him into believing he’s hunting the people responsible for his and his wife’s death. In these regards, both the movie and the Bloodshot character continue to bring RoboCop to mind, as well as superheroes or antiheroes with similar backstories and/or powers, like Wolverine and The Punisher. Bloodshot also appears to be going for a violent, possibly R-rated tone along the lines of those properties.
For these reasons, there’s a fair chance the Bloodshot movie will end up feeling derivative of recent superhero movies and TV series, rather than a fresh addition to the genre. The trailer further suggests the film is a clear-cut origin story, which probably won’t hep its efforts in that sense. At the same time, it looks pretty good, visually-speaking, and seems to have benefited from Wilson’s effects knowledge. Likewise, Wadlow and Heisserer compliment one another as writers and may prove successful in combining thrills with brains in their Bloodshot script.
Source: Sony
- Bloodshot Release Date: 2020-03-13
