Mark Wahlberg feeling Max Payne?

This year, howls of protest erupted when Deadwood star Timothy Olyphant was cast as Agent 47 in the film adaptation of the Hitman series. Today comes casting news for another game adaption that will hopefully elicit far fewer grumbles.

According to Variety, Mark Walhberg may play troubled action hero May Payne in the long-stalled big-screen version of Remedy Entertainment and Rockstar Games' iconic franchise. The Hollywood trade says the 20th Century Fox film is being directed by John Moore (Behind Enemy Lines, Flight of the Phoenix) from a script by newcomer Beau Thorne. Its plot will follow that of the first game, which sees Payne haunted by the 2001 original of his family by a corporate-backed drug syndicate. A 2003 sequel saw Payne in a doomed romance with a femme fatale.

If Wahlberg signs on, he will begin the project once he finishes work on The Lovely Bones with director Peter Jackson. Though he was recently nominated for an Oscar for his work in The Departed, Wahlberg wasn't exactly considered a master thespian when he had his first brush with the game industry. His sole game appearance was in the Sega-CD title Marky Mark: Make My Video (pictured), which was among the worst-reviewed games of 1992.