We haven’t really heard of any news involving Hitman since the 2007 movie starring Timothy Olyphant as Agent 47 (Including news about the horrifically long-awaited 5th game in the franchise; let’s go Eidos and IO Interactive!). The first movie didn’t exactly fare too well at the box office and was worse-off when it came to critical review, but even so, it was expected that a sequel would eventually come along. Even with the lacking first run, the flick did do better than most would expect of a video game-based movie; that and the property is based on the ultra-popular game franchise, which can always lead to some success.

In what confirms that a script is at least going to be written before deciding the fate of said sequel, IESB has learned that writer Kyle Ward has been hired to pen the sequel. Ward is pretty much a newbie to the game, but he does have a couple of unseen projects in-production: the Kane & Lynch movie with Bruce Willis and a movie called Fiasco Heights that’s set to be made by Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes. Kane & Lynch is of course based on another video game property that is developed by the same group that makes the Hitman games, so all fits together nicely here.

Now that we know that a second movie is apparently on the move, and that a new writer is on board (the first one was written by Skip Woods), the question now becomes: does director Xavier Gens and star Timothy Olyphant return as well? Some might hope that not only will this be a sequel, but that it would also be a bit of a reboot. I am one of these people.

Being a huge fan of the games, I was incredibly excited about the first movie. Painfully, nothing about it really worked, and that includes Timothy Olyphant, who I do respect as an actor. The movie didn’t at all feel like Hitman should; it felt more like a weak James Bond movie with a bald dude instead. The role of Agent 47 is not an easy one to cast, of course, but I have to think that it could be all handled a hell of a lot better than it was the first time. Ah, if only we could force a passable American accent out of Jason Statham. Sigh.