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Keanu Reeves to star in Netflix adaptation of his violent BRZRKR comic

The Matrix star will play an immortal warrior who fights battles that are "too violent and dangerous" for anyone else.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
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Gael Cooper
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The comic series came out in the fall of 2020.

Boom Studios!/Mark Brooks

Keanu Reeves is about to get even busier. On Monday, Netflix announced it's making a movie and anime series based on the actor's BRZRKR comic. Reeves will play a major role in both the film and series, the streaming service said.

"Exciting news," a tweet from one of Netflix's official accounts read. "Netflix is developing a live action film AND follow-up anime series based on Keanu Reeves' BRZRKR, a brutally epic saga about an immortal warrior's 80,000-year fight through the ages. Reeves will produce and star in the film, and voice the anime."

The 12-issue comic series came out in October 2020, and follows an immortal warrior as he fights his way through the ages. The character has long dark hair, and looks a lot like Reeves. 

"The man known only as 'B' is half-mortal and half-god, cursed and compelled to violence … even at the sacrifice of his sanity," Netflix said in a statement. "But after wandering the Earth for centuries, B may have finally found a refuge, working for the US government to fight the battles too violent and too dangerous for anyone else. In exchange, B will be granted the one thing he desires -- the truth about his endless blood-soaked existence, and how to end it."

As you can tell, this is no Bill and Ted saga -- think more John Wick-era Keanu. The comic series has been described as "brutally violent."  In one scene from the comics, Reeves' character stabs people to death with a chunk of one man's ribcage, then clubs another man to death with his own arm, Polygon reports

Netflix didn't say when the film and series might begin production or be released, but the actor isn't exactly sitting around idle in the meantime. Reeves stars in the fourth Matrix film, which comes out in December, and is about to begin work on John Wick 4.

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