Jean-Julien Baronnet, the producer associated with three film adaptations of Ubisoft's vastly popular video game properties - Jed Kurzel's Assassin's Creed, the Rabbids Invasion TV series, and the Ghost Recon: Alpha featurette, has reportedly joined the upcoming movie based on yet another video game series - the Duke Nukem feature-length film that will be produced by Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes.
According to Variety, Gearbox Software's Vice President of Business Development Sean Haren and Baronnet have been meeting with screenwriters to start actively developing the flick. "Duke is exactly the kind of very blunt character that we need in the world today,” Baronnet said. In Haren's opinion, Duke has the potential to be another Deadpool in terms of being able to break “the fourth wall.”
Back in March, Duke Nukem Producer Andrew Form revealed that John Cena (Trainwreck, Bumblebee) would be playing the video game adaptation's controversial lead. "We don't have a script yet, so that is confirmed at this point but if he reads the script and he doesn't like the script I'm sure there's ways that he could pull out, but right now he's our guy," Form said CinemaBlend over 9 months ago.
Since his 1991 debut in a 2D platform game developed and published by Apogee Software (renamed 3D Realms in 1996), Duke Nukem has starred in 19 video games as the iconic titular character.