Robert De Niro is teaming up with Jason Statham for an assassin movie. It’s called The Killer Elite and we first heard about this project back in 2009 here when Statham joined the cast. Since then they’ve also hired blonde Chuck bombshell Yvonne Strahovski and now Moviehole says they’ve confirmed that De Niro, Dominic Purcell, Ben Mendelsohn, Lachy Hulme and Firass Dirani are joining the production.

No word yet on what part De Niro or any of the other new additions might play, but the film casts Statham as a Navy Seal forced out of retirement to help a friend, one of a group of former British special forces agents being hunted down by assassins. I really don’t want to hear De Niro’s British accent, and I doubt anyone else does either, so does that make him one of the assassins? We can only hope.

What was once another 50/50 Jason Statham action movie project is suddenly legitimate, thanks to the addition of De Niro. This isn’t Crank 3: Still Crankin.

UPDATE! Moviehole has added details on the character being played by Robert De Niro. He'll play "Hunter", Jason Statham's friend and mentor, kidnapped and used to blackmail him.