Bill Paxton Up To Direct Kung Fu

That someone is looking to direct the big screen adaptation of TV series Kung Fu is not surprising – after all, the show, which brought David Carradine much cult fame, has long been the target of attempts to turn it into a film. What is surprising is who is now up for the director’s job: Bill Paxton.

Yup, Aliens’ Hudson, the man who played Chet Donnelly in Weird Science and Brock Lovett in Titanic plans to step behind the camera for a film based on the 1970s show.

Carradine starred in the series as Kwai Chang Caine, a Shaolin monk who travelled the highways and byways of America looking for people he could help – and usually finding trouble that required his martial arts skills – along the way.

Legendary Pictures has Black Swan co-writer John McLaughlin at work on a script for the film, which is now aiming to shoot next summer partly in China. There’s no word on a lead yet, but there are already calls to cast someone who is actually Asian this time.

This won’t be Paxton’s first time in the director’s chair – he already has Frailty, The Greatest Game Ever Played and several shorts on his resume. But knowing that he’s interested in the Kung Fu gig is still a bit of a shock…