On paper, the Hitman video game series seems like a good fit for a movie. It centers on a character with a reasonably iconic—and very easy to replicate—aesthetic, it’s all about killing people in creative or entertaining ways, and what little plot there is usually happens to be so unnecessary that even diehard fans might not notice if you scrapped all of it. And yet, the two Hitman movies that did come out were both largely terrible, one wasting the talents of Timothy Olyphant and the other wasting the talents of pretty much everyone involved.
However, we could’ve actually had a good Hitman movie years ago if the studio hadn’t been so ironically gun shy. As reported by IGN, Guardians Of The Galaxy director James Gunn recently revealed on Twitter that he once pitched a Hitman movie of his own, but the producers passed on it because they didn’t want an R-rating. He didn’t offer any details about his project, but he did add later on that he probably wouldn’t have been able to make Guardians Of The Galaxy if he had made Hitman, so maybe things worked out for the best.
Also, it’s probably worth noting that both Hitman movies were R-rated, so maybe the studio secretly had some other issue with Gunn’s pitch. Perhaps he wanted his brother to star as Agent 47? That would’ve been incredible, but we could understand the producers being a little wary of seeing Kirk from Gilmore Girls as the world’s greatest assassin.