Hunter Killer hit a minor bump in the road when Phillip Noyce dropped it, but this was soon patched up with the help of Antoine Fuqua. Now that the Training Day helmer is getting behind the camera, this thing can start to take shape. And what better place to start than casting?

We’ve already heard rumors of Gerard Butler being approached for the lead character, “Capt. Joe Glass, the commander of the USS Toledo,” and those seem to be going somewhere; Variety reports that the actor is currently in talks about taking that role, while Sam Worthington is the top contender for the part of “Bill Beaman, the leader of a special Navy SEAL unit called the Dev Group.”

Adapted from George Wallace and Don Keith‘s Firing Point revolves around “an untested submarine captain who must work with a Navy SEAL team to rescue the Russian president, who has been taken prisoner during a military coup, in an effort to stop a rogue Russian general from igniting World War III”; Jamie Moss, John Kolvenbach, and Arne Schmidt wrote the film. To me, that sounds like a fun premise for an action movie — submarines, the Navy, political intrigue, Russians, and World War III are just a few well-worn tropes of the genre that I’d be willing to submit to.

The casting is worth talking about here, mainly in light of the past two months or so. You see, Worthington and Butler recently led The Debt and Machine Gun Preacher, respectively, and the reviews of either have managed to reaffirm or revitalize their own image as actors. Five months ago, some would have scoffed at the idea of an action picture featuring these guys; now, it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. I’ve always liked the two of them — in spite of whatever odd career choices or acting weaknesses they’ve exhibited in the past — so I’ll be interested in checking the thing out when it opens on December 21st, 2012.

Would you like to see Butler and Worthington share the screen?