It’s always a bad thing when Hollywood starts looking towards video games for movie ideas. It is especially bad when the game Hollywood is looking towards has been dead and buried for many years the way Duke Nukem has. Still, that hasn’t stopped Hollywood from looking to hire John Cena to play the titular role of Duke Nukem.

The idea for a Duke Nukem film was originally floated by Dimension Films several years back. The studio is most notable for Sin City but have recently focused on smaller budget titles like the Hellraiser series. Their interest in Duke Nukem may have stemmed from their previous work bringing the Dead or Alive series to American audiences in a film that was truly awful to watch.

However, Paramount now has the film rights to the series and is currently exploring John Cena to star in the project. While Dimension Films would probably have explored the campy and gory side of the franchise, it’s likely that a Duke Nukem film by Paramount would be far more of a summer-action film, especially with Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes company producing. This is the same team that brought the recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films to life, and the style of equal parts action and comedy could be expected to accompany this film.

While an action-comedy version of the series might not be the worst film, it’s a little unsettling to constantly have the corpse of Duke Nukem propped out on stage for extra cash. After the fifteen years of development that went into the hugely disappointing Duke Nukem Forever, it seems as good a point as ever to simply let the franchise die.

However, that hasn’t stopped Gearbox from also seeing if there isn’t any loose change in Duke’s decaying pockets. The company has just months apart announced that a new Duke Nukem game definitely isn’t happening only to turn around and speculate all the things needed to make it work.

For fans of the original Duke Nukem titles, it’s unlikely he will ever return in a remotely recognizable form. The 90s Duke Nukem featured strippers, sexism, action-hero machismo, ultra-violence, and such iconic quips as, “I’ll rip your head off and shit down your neck,” which it should be pointed out, Duke Nukem actually does.

Whatever happens, a Duke Nukem film is a long way off. Before we get even the slightest hint of details, Paramount will first need to find a writer.