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Chris Pratt Teen Choice Awards Getty.jpg

Worst Chris in Talks for Reboot of 'The Saint'

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | November 16, 2018 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | November 16, 2018 |


Chris Pratt Teen Choice Awards Getty.jpg

Of the four Chrises, it is typically acknowledged on these here internets that Pratt is the worst. However, this does not necessarily translate to the outside world of paying audiences who love Jurassic World and aren’t all that put off by his hunting hobbies. Indeed, I would hazard a guess that, of our quartet of Chrises, Pratt is probably the one who is most likely to remain a big-budget blockbuster star after his superhero franchise contract ends. He gravitates more towards those kinds of projects, far less concerned with critical or indie cred. If Deadline’s latest report is anything to go by, Pratt’s new project will be business as usual.

Deadline’s exclusive claims that Chris Pratt is in early talks with Paramount for a relaunch of The Saint. For those not in the know, The Saint was originally a 1960s spy thriller T.V. series from the UK, based on a series of books by Leslie Charteris. It’s where Roger Moore got his start. It was rebooted in 1997 as a Val Kilmer film and was rebooted numerous times for TV movies and the like. A pilot for another TV reboot was produced in 2013 but did not screen until 2017, shortly after Moore’s death.

This doesn’t strike me as a natural fit for Pratt. He’s a bit too rough around the edges for an old-school suave spy. If we’re talking Chrises here, that would be a Pine job. My first response to this casting news was, ‘So they’re going in a more comedic direction?’ It’s not that Pratt can’t do drama - he has some incredibly affecting moments in the 2nd Guardians of the Galaxy movie - but he seems really happy in that niche of ‘Harrison Ford knock-off’ and I have trouble imagining him wanting to suit up and be that debonair sort of hero. However, he is bankable, or at least has the veil of bankability thanks to two successful franchises that bear his name. It doesn’t matter that he’s hardly the powerhouse behind either because money talks. None of the other Chrises seem all that interested in being that kind of action star - Hemsworth sort of does with the Men in Black reboot, but he’s also busy honing a more comedic persona.

It also seems like an odd choice for Paramount to reboot, but then again, their biggest franchise right now is a spy action-thriller, so why not go for what works?