John Cena Confirmed as Duke Nukem

Ugh.

So, if you recall, a few months back we reported that there was a Duke Nukem movie being planned in the glamorous Hollywood hills, with Platinum Dunes being the team responsible for putting the mess together. And you’ll also recall that their number one choice for playing the duke himself was none other than John “You can’t see me” Cena, a WWE star turned internet meme turned actual actor, judging by how often he’s showing up in movies these days. At the time, I was rightly exasperated by the rumors, but now I find myself even more distressed to discover they are no rumors at all, as John Cena has been confirmed as the leading role in this upcoming movie.

The gentlemen behind this project, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller, had this to say to Cinema Blend:

Yeah, that's what we're working with now. He is. Yes. 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.

Also in the interview, they talk about what kind of tone they’re trying to build (the article itself says they’re trying to “learn from Deadpool’s success”, which is just about the only tone they could really go for), and acknowledging that working with a character whose only real defining trait is his misogamy is a challenging prospect:

You know that having a misogynistic guy in today's world, how do you make that fun and lovable and at the same time he's got to be an incredible badass, so those are the things that we're struggling with and we're going to try and come out with what I hope is a really fun ride. That's the goal, is for it to be a really fun ride.

Well, anything can be excused as long as it works out and is a fun ride. But I’d be surprised if these three men manage to pull it off. I guess we’ll have to see.