The much anticipated Wesley Snipes comeback has been slow to get rolling following his release from prison after a three-year stint for tax evasion. There was his appearance in Expendables 3 and his stated desire to play Blade again, but for the most part, the former action star has laid low.
Snipes hasn’t even churned out direct-to-DVD action-thrillers where he plays a watchmaker in the 1800s who is forced to fight off ninjas to save his daughter, or a burnt-out cop in Montana who tries to single-handedly bring down a meth empire in the woods. Trust me, I’ve been checking the $5 bin at the unnamed big box retailer of my choice on a regular basis, and there is nothing. It’s been really disappointing, but it now looks like we might get all the Wesley Snipes we can handle if his new NBC TV project makes it to series.
Here are the details from THR:
From The Blacklist producers John Davis and John Fox, Endgame takes place in the high stakes world of Las Vegas, where a former sniper-turned-security expert (Strike Back‘s Philip Winchester) is drawn into a mysterious conspiracy that forces him to complete a series of heroic challenges in order to save innocent lives.
Snipes will play Johnson, an unflappable guy with a dry sense of humor. Highly intelligent and analytical. Mysterious and unreadable. As pit boss for The Game, he keeps an eye on the big picture but is also capable of cleaning up a mess when things spiral too far out of control.
This seems like a good news/bad news situation. On the one hand, weekly Snipes is good Snipes, and the role seems like a good fit, but is he the co-lead, or is he just a little bit of added name recognition in a supporting role to get this show on the air? Time will tell, but at the very least, I expect the pilot (which, again, takes place in the “high stakes world of Las Vegas”) to include at least one instance where Snipes says, “Always bet on black!” and then looks defeated for a split second. In fact, I demand it.
(Source: THR)
