Sean Bean signs on for Death Race 2

After starring as Zeus in last month’s franchise false start Percy Jackson And The Lightning Thief , Sean Bean has signed on to star in Death Race 2 .

The flick’s a prequel to the 2008 Jason Statham actioner, which was itself a remake of the 1975 film Death Race 2000 .

Directed by Paul WS Anderson (the man responsible for horrors like Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil , if you needed reminding), Statham's original was set in a chaotic 2012 where criminals raced armoured cars on Terminal Island as some kind of morbid spectator sport.

The Hollywood Reporter say that the prequel will “serve as the origin story for the character named Frankenstein, a convicted cop killer (Luke Goss) in a declining American empire where a racing reality show is about to be born in the country's corrupt prison system.”

Bean joins a cast that includes Lauren Cohan, Ving Rhames, Danny Trejo and Frederick Koehler. Paul WS Anderson is producing, while Roel Reine directs. Shooting is currently taking place in South Africa.

Death Race 2 will be distributed by Universal under their DVD Originals banner, the same label that released the lacklustre Smokin' Aces 2: Assassin’s Ball .

Death Race or death trap?

Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.