Realizing that it is far easier to beat them rather than join them, Transformers star Mark Wahlberg will lay down his arms against robots and pick up robot arms for The Six Billion Dollar Man. An adaptation of 1970s television show The Six Million Dollar Man, the adjusted-for-inflation film will update its sci-fi premise for an age when any defense project requires a minimum of $6 billion in government spending. And, after accounting for travel expenditures and “research” grants, there should be at least $100,000 or so left over to slap some robot parts on Wahlberg’s astronaut Steve Austin, who suffers terrible injuries in the crash of an experimental plane, but is saved by scientists who believe they can rebuild him—better, stronger, faster, saltier, more easily exasperated than ever before.
The Six Billion Dollar Man will be helmed by Wahlberg’s Lone Survivor director Peter Berg, who previously dealt with the tricky collusion of man and machine in Battleship. The film is expected to be released in 2016, no doubt launching a potential franchise that could someday lead to the introduction of The Bionic Woman—and, of course, Bionic Mark Wahlberg whipping out his massive robot dong.