Denzel Washington Scores Role In Sci Fi Film ‘Shovel Ready’

Are you ready to see Denzel Washington back in an action genre film? It’s been a while since he’s showed the movie going audience his action chops. Last year most of the attention was on his Oscar friendly film Flight.

Now it’s being reported that Washington has jumped into another action film called Shovel Ready. One that sounds similar to his 2004 film Man on Fire, which saw him as a former assassin who is hired to protect a family.

Shovel Ready has been announced as Warner Bros next sci fi project. The film is an adaptation from an unreleased novel by Adam Sternbergh, who is also a New York Times Magazine editor. Similar to the aforementioned Man on Fire, Washington will play a tough murderous man who takes a young girl under his wing. In Man on Fire it was a precocious young Dakota Fanning. So far we don’t know who Washington will play opposite, but we’re hoping they can at least play on our heartstrings as Fanning once did, or hold a candle to her.

According to Deadline, the premise of the film takes place in a post-apocalyptic New York City (a popular premise as of late). The citizens of said post-apocalyptic New York escape from the hard times of everyday life by visiting a virtual reality world. Washington, the said assassin, is hired and his target is a little girl, who just so happens to be the daughter of a powerful evangelist. Eventually in true Denzel Washington fashion, he has a conscience and becomes the little girl’s protector.

So far we don’t have anything else to go on, but we’ve seen Denzel make these familiar turns in Book of Eli and Man on Fire so it seems promising. With the right casting this can be a great project.

Are you looking forward to Shovel Ready? Sounds off here.