Travolta's in it. Thomas Jane (Deep Blue Sea, Boogie Nights) plays Frank Castle. Travolta plays a character named Howard Saint. It's currently in pre-production, and scheduled for a summer 2004 release. One change is that Castle will be an undercover FBI agent at the time of his family's murder.

The writer and director do not instil me with a lot of confidence. It's was written by Jonathan Hensleigh, who wrote Die Hard with a Vengeance, and cowrote Jumanji and Armageddon. A rewrite was done by Michael Tolkin, who wrote The Player, The Rapture, and The New Age.

For more info on the production, you can go to upcomingmovies.com's page for it here.

You can see a photo at imdb of Jane as the Punisher here.

If anyone is interested in unoffical websites devoted to the film and comic books, you can find two here and here.

I've seen that picture of Thomas Jane as the Punisher through a link on Captain Comics' message board. I still keep expecting this to be the scene where Frank Castle says, "Are you talkin' to me?" Thankfully, I've never been a fan of the Punisher, so I definitely won't be seeing this one.

Benn: I agree, but I think Thomas Jane is an underrated actor, and maybe this will be the vehicle that pushes him over the top into the "reliable character actor that every diretcor wants" category.

The teaser trailer is up at the official site here.

I saw that trailer on Access Hollywood. It's probably gonna stink. Of course, what I saw here should be taken with a grain of salt since I've never been a big Punisher fan.

I take back what i said before. I know, I've been deceived by trailers before (Freejack, anyone?), but this one actually looks pretty good. And this is oming from a Punisher non-fan.

what about the HULK

What about him? He has his own thread in Comic Books, and his movie's around this board somewhere.

Perhaps Anonymous means that the Hulk trailers looked good, but the movie itself...

Ah. Thanks for the translation.

The Punisher always kinda creeped me out, but I can see where he'd make for a compelling enough movie.

What i always liked about the punisher was that he could be just one of us that got pushed too far and blammo.

Well, yeah, if you were a captain in the Marines and served during the Vietnam War (his original origin)...

I've been reading The Essential Punisher Volume 1, which reprints the first 20 comics the Punisher appeared in, plus his first mini-series. I'm no more impressed with the character now than I was before. I think what bothers me the most is how many "I-won't-kill-you-'cos-that-would-make-me-as-bad-as-you" superheroes so willingly team-up with him. Realistically, they should all be trying to put the Punisher away into prison. I dunno, I just don't care for him. This film so far makes me think of the Death Wish series, but with a superhero costume.

"I like to watch." - Chauncy Gardner

Ok so most normal people dont have all the military training required to be quite as good as the punisher is but I think a lot of people who was pushed as far as he was and all could or would go off the edge like that and try at least for revenege, punish the bad guys etc...

Zarm: I would hvae to disagree if that was the case. The trailers (except for the first one), didn't impress me that much.

But then again, I had the bias of preferring the Peter David Hulk over the Jack kirby Hulk by a WIDE f-ing margin, and the Peter David Hulk wasn't going to be used for the movie (I guess Universal didn't think a sarcastic nuclear physicist who could throw tanks and leap over canyons would sell tickets).

I like the TV ads (with the Staind song) better than the theatrical ads.

Benn I've always liked the fact that he's not an "I'm not going to kill you because then I'd be just as bad as you" kind of hero because that kind of code always seemed too fake and contrived to me, something left over from an earlier day's media standards to me.

Well, Fitzie, one of the reasons I've always liked Wolverine was because he's a "homicidal maniac" (at least as originally portrayed). Personally, I'm willing to acknowledge that if I had superpowers, the first person to really tick me off would probably get killed. I mean, I agree, the whole "I-won't-kill-you-because-that-would-make-me-as-bad-as-you" morality code is a bit trite by now. But for some heroes it makes sense. I would expect characters like Spider-Man and Batman to adhere to such a code, if only because the murder of a loved one is why they chose the path they did. My problem is that you have all of these heroes who live by that code, and not one of them goes out to stop someone (the Punisher) who is, in their eyes, a murderer.

"I like to watch." - Chauncy Gardner

Now that would be an interesting crossover Batman vs Punisher. neither one has really amazing Built-in superpowers (ala spiderman/wolverine) and have to rely on their brains and technology to get the job done. Which with Batman's gadgets and Punisher's weapons could be an interesting fight especially as tough and smart as they both are.

Actually, R, a two-part Punisher/Batman has already been published back in the '90s, I believe.

"I like to watch." - Chauncy Gardner

OH ok. Well looks like I'll have to try and find that one then. I havent really kept up with the comics since the late 80s when i graduated into girls, cars and other more expensive things to spend my time and money on.