Though he's still most famous as the bellowing King Leonidas of 300, Gerard Butler has been taking a series of roles that are really all over the place, from rom-coms The Ugly Truth and The Bounty Hunter to over-the-top revenge film Law Abidiing Citizen to the family fantasy Nim's Island. Pretty much none of them have paid off at the box office, and if Butler wants to be the action star has the potential be, he needs to hunker down, pick up some weapons, and avoid sharing top billing with Katherine Heigl or Jennifer Aniston any time soon.

Happily Butler and and his management seem to have gotten the same message, and as a follow-up to his forthcoming Machine Gun Preacher-- in which he plays a former drug dealer who travels to Sudan to protect orphans-- Butler will star for director Antoine Fuqua in an adaptation of Afterburn, the graphic novel by Paul Ens and Scott Chitwood. According to Deadline Butler will star as the leader of a team of treasure hunters who return to a planet that has been half-burned by the sun in order to recover what goods may remain there.

With the post-apocalyptic setting and the idea of being thrust into enemy territory, the role sounds not too far off from Escape from New York's Snake Plissken, a role Butler was considered for in the upcoming remake of the film. Now he'll finally get his chance to raise hell in a ragged wasteland-- and hopefully re-establish his action credentials in the process.