'Point Break' remake: Will Gerard Butler star?

A 'Point Break' remake has been in the works for some time now, and now actor Gerard Butler is reportedly in talks to appear in the film. Who else will star in the 'Point Break' remake?

The Point Break remake has been turning its wheels steadily but slowly, following Alcon Entertainment’s initial announcement that the 1991 thriller would be getting a proper makeover (technically, The Fast and the Furious doesn’t count as a remake). When last we reported on the project, it was slated to begin filming before 2013 drew to a close; that didn’t happen, but right now it’s looking pretty likely that principal photography will get underway within the next six months or so.

Point Break – starring the late Patrick Swayze, a pre-Speed (but post-Bill & Ted) Keanu Reeves, and directed by a pre-Oscars glory Kathleen Bigelow – follows “F! B! I! Agent!” Utah (Reeves) as he goes undercover and infiltrates a gang of bank robbers, led by Bodhi (Swayze) – an adrenaline junkie with a penchant for surfing. The remake will expand (and update) the premise to encompass other extreme sports, though producer Andrew Kosove has offered assurances that surfing will still be “very prominent in the story.”

THR is reporting that Gerard Butler has entered talks to play the role of Bodhi. If the 300 actor strikes a deal, then Point Break 2.0 will be one of three projects he works on this year, following Alex Proyas’ mythological tentpole Gods of Egypt and prior to the start of production on the Olympus Has Fallen sequel, London Has Fallen.

Butler played a surfer (real-life wave catcher Frosty Hesson) in the film Chasing Mavericks, though his character there was more of a paternal and wizened figure – not so much the anti-establishment, well, maverick that is Bodhi.

Directing responsibilities on the Point Break remake have been assigned to Ericson Core, who served as the cinematographer on The Fast and the Furious and Daredevil as well as the true-story based football drama Invincible (which Core also directed).

While he’s a natural fit for the project, one has to wonder how well Core’s high-octante filmmaking technique will stack up compared against Bigelow’s – seeing how that is the Oscar-winning Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty director’s area of expertise. It shall be a challenge for Core to match or exceed the intensity of Bigelow’s action choreography (for example, see this sequence), though that’ll primarily be an issue for longtime Point Break fans; not so much newcomers, who’ve never seen the 1991 original.

Sandy Schaefer blogs at Screen Rant.