Jason Statham is one of those actors who really burst into the Hollywood public consciousness.
He could thank this to the fact that his first roles included two real cult films, in the form of The Sly, The Brain and Two Smoking Barrels, and The Bluff. But at that time, no one had pigeon-holed the former jumper-turned-actor as an action star.
Jason Statham had a very rhapsodic start in Hollywood. Sandwiched between the two cult movies mentioned above is an unworthy gangster film. And before he made it big again with the equally brilliant Gépállát SC (in the role of the not-a-little-crazy goalkeeper) and established his reputation as an action star once and for all with The Transporter, he had one more film on his list. This was the film in which he got the lead role for the first time in his career, and that was from the king of horror, John Carpenter. The movie Ghost of Mars , which you probably haven’t heard of because it was an easily forgettable sci-fi horror.
The story takes place in 2025, when humans have already established mining colonies on the red planet. They are planning to transfer the infamous killer, James Williams, known as the Destroyer (not that, another one), but upon arriving on the planet, the delegation faces a greater danger. On the planet, the ghosts of an army that was once slaughtered, hiding in the bodies of living people, started a new war to occupy Mars.
It is interesting that since this was Jason Statham’s first major role in an action-packed movie, the makers did not dare to take too many risks with him. And although he was originally intended to play the role of James Williams, they feared that he was not yet a big enough name to carry the film, so the role was eventually given to Ice Cube (interesting choice…). And Jason Statham appeared as Jericho. Whether the film would have been better if he had played the role of the killer, we will never know, in any case, The Ghost of Mars became an easily forgettable movie.
