First of all, no magic, no supernatural blab!
This is to be a gritty epic Western movie, with the most comicbook like it would get being like Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes, and thats a maybe slightly.
A little history one this particular Jonah Hex to contrast the previous movies.
Jonah is an ex confederate veteran. He ran away from his swearing abusive father after his mother died, and later went on to be raised by Apache after killing a Puma to save their chief.
He rose in the ranks of the confederacy throughout most of the war as a tracker, and allegedly a double agent along with Joshua Turnbull. It was rumored that he was the one who killed Stonewall Jackson.
He later married an Apache woman who scouted for the North, Tallbird, and had two children with her.
One fateful night, some ex confederate mercenaries lead by none other than Joshua Turnbull needed refuge after looting a place; and took it by force in Hex's home. He came home to find them in his home with his wife and children attempting to subdue his wife. He fought killing two of them but was left to die in his house which was set to burn along with his family. He awoke to a face on fire from an over turned stove, and his family already dead from smoke intake. He was able to get himself from under the charred rubble but his wife and child were long gone.
When no one wanted to look into the deaths of a few "Red's and thier mixed young." Jonah took matters into his own hands and tracked and caught all but one of them, and scalped them.
The last one, Joshua Turnbull, was said to have died in a quarry after a mining accident, and Jonah went onto be the most feared bounty hunter in the four corners of the west. Particularly taking jobs for people who have no voice and get no justice, be it race color or otherwise.
The movie itself would start off with Jonah taking in the Gotham Butcher in a meat factory of Chicago, just to show off his bad assity.
The scene would demonstrate his sniper skills, and quickdraw.
It would also show his proficiency in hand to hand, fighting dirty, and even using the steers that are in the waiting stalls to trample his opponents by releasing them from their stalls.
At one point when fighting the butcher, he grabs some decorative long horns off the wall and fights him until the knife is knocked out of his hand and then pins him to the wall with them.
Because Jonah ain't no fool, he reveals to the authorities at their arrival that the factory owner paid the Gotham Butcher to kill the two partners who owned the factory with him, as well as their families admidst the other random hostages to make it look like a random killing of his.
After his detective work's been shown, the crooked Factory Owner draws a concealed weapon on Jonah now that he's busted.
Jonah being a quicker draw will plug him in the arm and knee because he's determined for him to hang for what he did; putting the lives of women and Lil' ones in jeopardy.
With that out of the way we establish how good he is, and what essentially he is.
Here is some theme music to set the mood for this sort of western.
Here are some theme music to set the mood for this sort of western.
The full story comes into play when he hears that Joshua Turnbull is not only alive but has recently moved up in the crime world, so much so that he has been made a member of the Royal Flush Gang. A Elitist Crime Syndicate from Europe that's made its way into the U.S. via RailRoad contracts and putting so much money into it.
The pay off is that the law look the other way for gaining control of various towns and territories they buy out or move out to establish their crime ring and ultimately crime MONOPOLY in that realm so that all law work or law breaking either way can be controlled by them.
Chinese child slavery being one of their enterprises, no one really pays notice or raises a brow, or can prove that they're doing so.
Until Jonah Hex looks into the death of a whore of a certain town under the Royal Flush Gang's heel. She was killed off cause she knew something and was going to tell it to the man who'd paid her to get the information: US Marshall named Lofton.
Lofton's the underdog Marshal who Hex is likened to because of his darndest belief that he should help everyone, not just everyone who looks like you, and that people...are people good or bad.
The plan that the Flush Gang are about to hatch could possibly lead up to a way to help the confederacy start a whole new funded war.
Jonah goes to the town to find the only confidant who the dead whore told anything to while she was alive, named Cassie-May. (She will be a blend of Cassie(Jonah's fiance) and Adrian Sterling.)
Meaning she will be a partner with Lofton, using her specific set of skills of burglary, torture, and....other talents to get information for him.
While she pretends to be easy, she is actually an experienced fighter, and assassin, sort of the Black widow to his nick fury.
The opposition for them is turned up a few notches when with the pull that Royal Flush have in places of authority, they place Jonah and Cassie-May under arrest and are branded fugitives of the law.
Now Jonah and Cassie-May's adversaries include every other cut throat and bounty hunter in the west besides wanting their reward.
Jonah of course will look at this as "They done gave me a way to get rid of my competition with a clear conscience, much obliged."
The focus off the movie would be Jonah yet again being put in a position where it looks like he'll get nothing for doing the right thing, but his resolve to never stop despite it.
Now for the cast.
For Jonah, I choose Michael C. Hall.
Give him a grovellier voice, and just go hardcore western bad ass and let him loose, you'll have a merciless Jonah Hex you won't soon forget.
For his love interest in this movie, Cassie-May Wainwright, I choose Olivia Wilde.
She'll be trained in knife fighting and sniping (From her Cherokee/Sioux daddy) and how men work and how to get what you want from em from her Dutch Mama. She'll prove to be an invaluable asset and eventual love for Jonah.
For Detective Marshall Lofton, I choose J.K. Simmons.
At first I thought Bryan Cranston but then thinking back, J.K. would bring a different kind of feel to the role which I always felt was more like Tenzin from Legend of Korra...who Simmons voices and owns at.
For Bat Lash, the gambling boy who Jonah will save before he's hung for "Defying the Royal Flush Gang's rule of this beloved city..." and helps Jonah and Lofton, I choose Justin Hartley
For Jonah's late wife: Tallbird, I choose Moon Bloodgood.
She will appear in flashbacks. The one woman who Jonah loved in his life (Before meeting Cassie-May), a Souix woman, and "one ya never forget." as he would say.
Her and his children we killed as a result of witnessing the Turnbull brothers lynching.
For the Royal Flush Gang themselves
I choose Ian McShane as KING: Edger Dupart, leading many underground crime rings in Europe from Paris to Ireland, and now here.
I think we can all agree that the man from Deadwood could deliver.
Natalie Dormer as QUEEN: Elisa Dupart, Vixon and cunning crime heiress like her father, a famous french criminal. She is the Mafia queen of the Royal Flush Gang since her mothers passing for betraying the Gang. She understands the risks and sits pretty with her new position.
Timothy Olyphont as Joshua Turnball JACK: Joshua is the one responsible for the death of Hex's Wife and children, they unfortunately were witness to a crime committed by him and his brothers. Jonah found and killed supposedly all of them at a cliff, but Joshua is somehow alive and in one of the biggest crime families this side of South Dakota. His eyes are set on the Queen of the Royal Flush Gang and to one day be King.
I choose Léa Seydoux from Mission Impossible 4 for Z.C.Branke/TEN: ZC is a "favorite" of King's...and Queen's. She's a cold faced assassin with a lovely face. She's gotten more information..and blood then before she turned 19 then most spies do. She killed her nanny when she was 9, feeling nothing, and uncle who was thought of have tried to abuse her. KING/Edger saw her work being thrown in and escaping from various asylums and took her under his wing to be his private weapon.
I think that Léa Seydoux can play a psychotic yet exotic lady of 10 very well.
And Vinnie Jones as ACE/Byron Booth: A former heavy weight London champ fighter and robber in London, a thief since his youth, and unafraid to blood his knuckles over anyone. Those who go toe to toe with him rarely walk away, or even limp away. He began to run his own crime ring in lower London until he caught the notice of the Royal Flush Gang.
SO with that said and done, you owe me your soul, watcha think?