Given his well-documented love of turning almost everything he touches into a franchise, or at the very least trying if not succeeding, it was inevitable that Vin Diesel would one day try and position himself as the star of a multi-film superhero series. Obviously, he provides the vocals for Groot in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but Bloodshot gave him the opportunity to step out of the recording booth and onto center stage.
It seems absolutely insane to think now, but during the buildup to the movie’s release last March, Diesel said he was more than willing to defy the studio’s orders and head over to China to promote Bloodshot, even though there was the emerging threat of a virus coming out of Wuhan. That didn’t happen, of course, and the planned first installment in the Valiant Cinematic Universe unfortunately happened to debut in theaters the very weekend the doors to the entire planet slammed shut.
It was shuttled onto digital less than two weeks later, and for a while it looked as though any sequel plans had been nixed at the first hurdle, although there were rumors that a reboot could be happening in double quick time. The last we heard, Diesel is still set to return as the title hero in the planned follow up, so it’s good news for Sony that Bloodshot is finding a new lease of life on Netflix.
The comic book adaptation is right on the cusp of breaking into the platform’s Top 20 most-watched list, and Vin Diesel‘s enduring popularity as the face of the Fast & Furious saga should be more than enough to see Bloodshot play well, based largely on his reputation as one of the modern era’s defining action heroes.