The wrestler-turned-actor is negotiations to star in Duke Nukem, a big-screen adaptation of the popular video game franchise featuring the politically incorrect action hero that is set up at Paramount.
Platinum Dunes, the company run by Michael Bay, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller, will produce the movie.
No director is on board at this stage. A search for a writer will begin soon to develop a script for what is intended to be a star vehicle for Cena.
The Nukem video games follow muscular adventures of its titular protagonist, who initially was a mash-up of action hero tropes. The muscular cigar-chomping figure has been fighting aliens in order to save planet Earth since 1991 when the first game was released.
The project was previously set up at Dimension Films although the rights lapsed. Paramount picked up the movie rights from Gearbox Software, the company behind the game.
Platinum Dunes is one of the companies behind The Purge action franchise and has produced the Ninja Turtles movies for Paramount. It next has the John Krasinski-directed horror movie A Quiet Place opening April 6.
Cena has quietly made Paramount his de facto movie home, having appeared in the studio’s Daddy Home 2, which has grossed over $100 million domestically, and is due to appear in Bumblebee, the studio’s Transformers spinoff that Bay produced.
