Daniel-Radcliffe1
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I’m endlessly fascinated by the career of Daniel Radcliffe. Many actors coming off a childhood franchise as monumental as the Harry Potter films would take a few years to reframe themselves as a dramatic actor or, at least, a major Hollywood sex symbol. Not so with Radcliffe. Radcliffe has chosen to fire off a rapid succession of utterly unique choices, from his demonic leading role in Horns to his supporting turns in Victor Frankenstein and Swiss Army Man (aka the farting corpse movie). I guess this is what Harry Potter money looks like; Radcliffe can spend the rest of his career making whatever bizarre choices he wants without anyone ever telling him no.

Case in point? Guns Akimbo, the first film by special effects guru Jason Lei Howden. The Hollywood Reporter announced today that Radcliffe would be playing the film’s main character, a timid man who stumbles across a web site that pits users against each other in a livestream battle to the death. Think The Running Man by way of Nerve and you’ll probably understand the type of film that Howden is going for here. The Hollywood Reporter also notes that Guns Akimbo is being billed as an “adrenaline fuelled balls-to-the-wall original action comedy reminiscent in tone to films such as Kick-Ass or Deadpool,” which pretty much hits all the right comparisons for 2017.

With so many people pointing out the similarities between Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Running Man and, uh, some elements of our current political landscape, it was only a matter of time before someone capitalized on that and put a pulpy dystopian thriller into production. Hollywood hasn’t exactly demonstrated a strong understanding of how to turn the dark web into a compelling plot device  —  all respect to Nerve, which I more-or-less enjoyed  —  but odds are good that Guns Akimbo will stand on the strength of its action scenes anyways. Here’s one thing I know for sure: if the script and storyboards are enough to capture Radcliffe’s interest, then I’m interested as well. Just as long as they keep that awesome name.

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