Matthew Fox to Blow Smoke

Posted by Josh Radde (josh@filmschoolrejects.com) on June 30, 2008

“Lost” star Matthew Fox has been contacted to play the lead character in the new Warner Bros. comic book adaptation Billy Smoke. Fox, most recently seen in box office turd Speed Racer, will portray an assassin looking to redeem himself. Variety reported that the story will center around a botched assassination attempt that leads Fox to hunt down assassins, so as to rid the world of assassins, I guess leaving only one assassin.

I dunno, I’m pretty confused by this plot, even though it sounds pretty straight-forward. Hopefully it’ll be more like Grosse Point Blank and less like Hitman. Or more like Hitman and less like Grosse Point Blank. I don’t know what I’d like to see out of this movie.

It would be one thing if they had maybe a different star attached to this adaptation. There doesn’t seem to be anything to get excited about at this point. Matthew Fox is great in “Lost” but look at his movies—We Are Marshall, Vantage Point, and Speed Racer. None of these movies scream “Matthew Fox is a man’s man,” even though I’m sure the parts were all deliberately chosen to showcase his deep voice. Fox is great on “Lost” because he’s the hesitant leader of the castaways and constantly doubting himself and his abilities. This is what he’s good at; it was the same character (more or less) in “Party of Five” (under-rated show). I just don’t see him as the football coach/secret security agent/death-defying racecar driver, and I especially don’t see him as a hit man.

This also says nothing of the fact that Fox has not proven to be a very bankable star in his film career, either.

I digress. Billy Smoke is written by B. Clay Moore and illustrated by Eric Kim and should be released by Oni Press next year. So, it’s not even an established comic book character yet, that’s why you can’t find it on Wikipedia. The film does not have a writer or director yet attached.

Read more articles by Josh Radde