After its box office run was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Bloodshot was released on Digital platforms by Sony Pictures yesterday. To mark the occasion, the studio has released the first 9 minutes for fans to get an enticing sneak peek at the titular character's origin story.
Focusing on a very human version of Bloodshot, we see him on a mission for the military before spending some quality time with his other half. However, things then go horribly wrong as a mysterious group look to take this future superhero down.
It's all rather exciting, but as you'll see from our review of Bloodshot, the movie doesn't impress!
Ultimately, it's hard to say how fondly the Vin Diesel-led release will be remembered by even the most hardcore Valiant Comics fans, and it probably won't ever go down as a "classic" superhero film. Regardless, an unsuccessful opening weekend and immediate move to Digital likely means a sequel happening in the near future is highly unlikely to ever become a reality!
Check out Bloodshot's opening sequence in the player below:
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some of the best Easter Eggs from Bloodshot!
Martin Axe
The movie reveals that Ray Garrison/Bloodshot has spent years being sent after Emil Harting's foes, but the first we meet is Martin Axe. Does that name ring a bell?
Well, it probably should because Martine Axe - better known in the comics just as "Ax" - has been part of the Valiant comic book universe since 1992. His comic book counterpart is a human with the psychic ability to communicate with machines, and he spent quite some time trying to steal the nanites in Bloodshot's bloodstream.
Later, he became a good guy, but the two versions of this character only really share a name.
Prince Of Zamunda
There are a lot of great references to the wider Valiant Universe in Bloodshot, but one of the weirdest non-comic book nod comes when Eddie Murphy's Coming to America receives a mention.
In that comedy, the actor plays the crown prince of fictional county Zamunda, and travels to New York City looking for a bride who loves him, and not his royal background. Wilfred Wigans references that deception when he sarcastically names himself the "crown prince of Zamunda."
It's a weird Easter Egg, but those of you thinking Wigans himself is one (especially after he says he has a name that sounds like a comic book superhero) will be disappointed as he's newly created for the film and not from the source material.
Project Rising Spirit
In Bloodshot, the hero gets his name from the program that creates him (the aptly named Project Bloodshot). However, things are a little bit different in the comic books because it's Project Lazarus, a.k.a. Project Rising Spirit, which gives birth to the badass superhero played by Vin Diesel.
Well, there's a nod to that mysterious group in this movie as we learn that the company behind Project Bloodshot is "RST." That's obviously an acronym for "Rising Spirit Tech."
That's pretty much where the similarities end, though, as instead of being run by Simon Oreck or Hideyoshi Iwatsu, the company is now run by Emil Harting. Still, these companies are clearly meant to be one and the same!
Gina DeCarlo's Fate
Like most comic book superheroes, Bloodshot has been romantically involved with a number of women over the years, and this movie puts the spotlight on Gina DeCarlo.
The only noteworthy impact she really makes here comes when she, uh, dies, but Gina does have a far more interesting comic book counterpart. Shortly after he was murdered by the gangster who he went undercover to take down, the Domestic Operations Authority decided they needed to get rid of the evidence that their operative Ray ever existed.
Unfortunately, that included brainwashing Gina and, when that didn't take, they killed her! In this movie, it's revealed that she's still alive and well, but with a new family.
Bloodshot's Chest Logo
Bloodshot looks a lot like, well, Vin Diesel in this movie and there's only really one sequence where he really resembles the version of the character from the comic books.
The red circle on the hero's chest is meant to be a scar caused by the device which injected him with the nanites that make him damn near unstoppable. The movie pays homage to that by having the nanites in Bloodshot glow red when he's kicking ass, but there's another nod to the classic logo.
Whenever Ray Garrison is lying on that operating table, one of the devices above him sits where the logo on his chest should be.
Bloodshot's Dual Pistols
Despite the fact that Bloodshot is presumably supposed to be the opening chapter in some sort of shared universe for the Valiant Universe characters, there aren't really very many nods to that wider world. However, there are some cool visual cues specific to this hero fans will appreciate.
For example, when Bloodshot goes after Martin Axe, he uses two pistols to kill the man he believes murdered his wife. It's very brief, but a definite reference to the source material.
However, this isn't the only time Bloodshot borrows a sight sure to be familiar to hardcore fans...
Bloodshot: Salvation
Throughout the course of Bloodshot, the titular hero continuously gets blown up, and it's often his face which is blown to pieces. This leads to him rocking something of a "battle-damaged" appearance, and that's a piece of imagery which should definitely be familiar to comic book fans.
The Bloodshot: Salvation cover is iconic, and features a torn up version of Ray Garrison.
While the movie was more than likely always going to show the hero taking this sort of damage, it's clear that the movie was inspired by this imagery from the source material.
"Rai"
We've been talking a lot about Ray Garrison, but that's not the only name the comic book version of this character has gone by. Because he was undercover when he died, he spent years believing that his name was Angelo Mortalli, but a handy retcon ended up changing things and he learned that his true name was Ray.
Two years before Bloodshot was introduced, Valiant released Rai, a comic about a Japanese superhero in the far future. However, we later learned that "Rai" was a title passed down through the generations, and it all began with Bloodshot!
The movie keeps this comic book retcon by making "Ray Garrison" Bloodshot's true name.
Bloodshot's Comic Accurate Appearance
As we alluded to a little earlier in this feature, there's only one sequence where Bloodshot takes on an appearance anything like we're used to seeing in the comic books.
In those, the hero is often depicted as being shirtless with the red circle on his chest, but it's not until his nanites are almost all used up that Vin Diesel's version transforms into "Bloodshot." His skin grows pale and the nanites inside him create a red glow which emanates from his chest.
With that, we have Bloodshot, but he quickly returns to looking like a regular dude!
Bloodshot's Unfilmed Post-Credits Scene
Bloodshot doesn't include a post-credits scene of any sort, but former Valiant Entertainment CEO Dinesh Shamdasani recently revealed what one would have entailed when he was still in charge.
Apparently, they were in talks with Ken Watanabe to take on the role of Toyo Harada, a billionaire mogul with powerful psychic abilities who establishes the Harbinger Foundation to train those like him. In this sequence, Bloodshot would have come face to face with him, and some answers about why he was created in the first place would have been provided in the process.
Taking the form of an "unnaturally large dire wolf" with Harada talking through it, Harada was going to warn Bloodshot that he had to make a choice in the coming war. Vin Diesel was reportedly on board with the idea, but no details have been revealed about why it wasn't shot.