Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson May Be Brett Ratner's Hercules

Recently between the release of Tarsem Singh's Immortals, and the upcoming sequel Wrath of the Titans, movie about humans in Greek mythology seems to be more popular than movies about the gods themselves. And now comes another one from X-Men: The Last Stand director Brett Ratner, based on the graphic novel Hercules: The Tharcian Wars, and The Rock himself is being eyed for the starring role.

According to Vareity's Jeff Snyder's Twitter page:

"VARIETY EXCLUSIVE: Can you smell what HERCULES is cooking? TheRock is in talks to star in MGM & Brett Ratner’s HERCULES!!!"

While the story of Hercules is probably mostly known for it's Disney animation portrayal, the graphic novel that the film will be based off of has a completely different approach. Rather than being from Greece, Hercules is actually in the barbarian nation Thrace, where he has to take the Thracian's kings orders and train the Tharcian army for war. Now, while the Rock might not have seemed the best choice for a classic Greek Hercules, he fits this more barbaric version much better. My personal choice for Hercules would be Joe Manganeillo, but while he fits the Greek Hercules perfectly, a think he could also tackle the barbaric version as well.

The Rock has been in the spotlight quite a bit lately, whether for good or bad. He's done a very wide array of movies recently including last years action blockbuster Fast Five, this years kids film Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, and later this year he'll be starring in G.I. Joe Retaliation, which falls somewhere in between the latter and former. If the Rock choses to except the role, it'll really tackle a much more similar role to The Rock's first films including Scorpion King and The Mummy Returns. The Rock may not be award winningly amazing on screen, but he's definitely got a lot of charisma to pull off a leading role like Hercules.

As for the films director Brett Ratner, there's much more room for concern with him. Ratner's work on the not so well recieved X-Men: The Last Stand is enough to have me worried, and then there's this year's highly hyped (But not so successful) Tower Heist, and not to mention his nack for getting in trouble (So much so, that he ruined Eddie Murphy's chance at hosting this years Oscars). While Ratner has definitely had some mishaps, that isn't to say that he can't pull of a decent entertaining action flick. I guess we'll all have to see how this adaption turns out come 2014.

What do you think of the Rock as Hercules? Do you think Brett Ratner can pull it off?