Ray Park will be playing a sword-master sidekick in a new project called The Necronauts, from writer and directed by Kevin Van Hook, who’s doing the movie in conjunction with legendary special-effects master Ray Harryhausen.

Park, who’s best known for his role as the sith Darth Maul in Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace, as well as Toad in X-Men, will be seen next as Snake Eyes in the live-action G.I. JOE movie; Van Hook did visual work on Daredevil and I, Robot.

The story for The Necronauts will supposedly be a take on the 1963 Jason and the Argonauts, which featured Harryhausen’s pioneering stop-motion work, but more on steroids where the hero and his group venture into Hades to collect a group of the dead and bring the fight to the God of War, Ares.

Not long ago, I craved more Greek Mythology movies… now, I just can’t keep up with them anymore. The last I checked, a movie called War of Gods was coming, a separate new Jason and the Argonauts is still coming I believe, and also, Brett Ratner was planning to piss all over the video game God of War‘s movie adaptation. So there’s no shortage in Greek Mythology movies being planned; whether they actually become a reality or not is yet to be seen. At least Harryhausen will be a part of this new one.

The Necronauts is in its absolute primary motions at the moment; it may become a movie, but it may also become a TV show. They also are looking at Casper Van Dien (Starship Troopers) for the lead role, or maybe a another role. Hopefully it’s the former, because I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that Van Dien isn’t the best choice for a lead role unless it’s a movie about attacking bugs.

On the other hand, him and Ray Park were in Sleepy Hollow together!

[Source: MTV