If you’ve seen a handful of movies in the last 20 years, chances are you’ve seen one starring Luis Guzman. Although he’s never been Hollywood’s leading man, he’s had various roles in some high profile movies over the years — any number of P.T. Anderson movies, Traffic and the TV series OZ, come to mind. And now, Deadline reports that he will be leading the new action comedy Aztec Warrior.
He will be playing the warrior in the “Lucha Libre-inspired picture who goes up against his rival El Diablo”, who will be played be Mexican comedian Eugenio Derbez. Terry Crews, Nadine Velazquez and Lupe Ontiveros (Desperate Housewives) are among the supporting cast. Scott Sanders, who directed the blaxploitation-esque picture Black Dynamite back in 2010, co-wrote the script with Don Handfield and will also be directing the project.
It’s nice to see Guzman get a much-deserved lead role and after Sanders’ brilliant last feature, this is shaping up to be a strong project. Despite it getting some sort of cult status, I’m just hoping we don’t have another Nacho Libre on our hands.
Meanwhile, Black Dynamite star Michael Jai White told CraveOnline (via JoBlo) that he and the film’s co-writer, Byron Minns, see their 2009 exploitation riff as the first of a trilogy — except, not in the traditional sense.
Rather than follow the further adventures of Dynamite, they’d like to craft a series “that would occur in that time period that starred essentially the same cast”; as of now, they’re only “trying to decide which would be the next step.” I can’t necessarily say if this rules out a sequel — only because White thinks there’s “some other stuff to do” in such a department — but, for now, those who want to see more of Black Dynamite’s adventures should watch the animated series, which begins airing on Cartoon Network next month. Personally, I think I kind of prefer a jump to different hokey, ’70s genre exercises; if you’re going to resurrect ghosts of cinema’s past, you should still try your best to keep things relatively fresh.
What are your thoughts on Aztec Warrior?