Benjamin Walker Climbs Ed Zwick’s The Great Wall

Benjamin Walker may become a breakout star in a few weeks, thanks to playing the title role in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. He’s already booked a follow-up, as Variety reports that Walker has joined the cast of The Great Wall, alongside the previously cast Henry Cavill, for director Edward Zwick.

The film revolves around the mystery of why The Great Wall of China was built. Although the Great Wall was initially constructed over 2,000 years ago, when there were a distinct lack of white people in China for Cavill and Walker to play, the film will look at the Wall in the 15th Century, when the most famous, iconic stone parts of the Great Wall were erected. The movie sees a group of British warriors arrive in China just as the wall is being hurriedly reinforced and lengthened. It’s not just to keep the mongols out, as there’s something otherworldly the Chinese are trying to keep at bay, which emerges after nightfall.

Edward Zwick is directing from a screenplay he co-wrote with Marshall Herskovitz, based on an original idea by Legendary Pictures executive Thomas Tull and World War Z author Max Brooks. it isn’t known when it might shoot.