Vincent D’Onofrio Cast In Death Wish

Marvel's Daredevil villain Vincent D'Onofrio will reportedly play the brother of Bruce Willis in [...]

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Marvel's Daredevil villain Vincent D'Onofrio will reportedly play the brother of Bruce Willis in the forthcoming, Willis-led Death Wish reboot.

Deadline reports that both D'Onofrio and Dean Norris of Breaking Bad fame joined the project this week. Norris will play a police detective.

The film centers on a man whose wife and child are the victims of a violent crime. When their attackers aren't brought to justice, Willis's character will take it upon himself to hunt them down.

Eli Roth, best known for his work on films like Cabin Fever and Hostel, will direct.

The original was a contrvoversial film: Released in the '70s, it was seen as a rejection of the effect that the '60s counterculture had on mainstream America. Almost any description of the movie or the novel on which it's based will describe the lead character as a "sensitive liberal" who snaps when his worldview is challenged by the murder of his wife and violent rape of his daughter. Its overtly right-wing politics and endorsement of vigilantism didn't sit right with some audiences, especially those familiar with the novel (which denounced the concept). During his review of David Fincher's Fight Club, famed film critic Roger Ebert referred to Death Wish as "frankly and cheerfully fascist."

In the first film, there was no role for main character Frank Kersey's brother, and the police detective with the biggest role was a minor character from the novel whose role grew significantly during the adaptation process.

The original Death Wish starred Charles Bronson. It was released in 1974 and in the 20 years following, spawned four sequels. Before Eli Roth came around, there were two previous attempts to remake the film: in 2006, Sylvester Stallone announced that he planned on doing a remake that recast the main character as "a very good cop who had incredible success without ever using his gun," and would focus on the moral dilemma raised by the prospect of going from cop to vigilante. In 2012, Joe Carnahan has plans to write and direct a Death Wish reboot, but it never happened.

Even this version has already had its share of drama: the filmmakers behind low-budget horror hits Rabies and Big Bad Wolves were attached to write and direct this before Roth came along, but quit when they clashed with the studio over script rewrites.

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