Earlier this week director Wayne Kramer walked away from Headshot, the hitman project that was set to star Sylvester Stallone as a veteran teaming up with a young cop to solve a string of murders. Stallone is describing Kramer's departure as a "professional parting of the ways," explaining that Kramer was envisioning a far more violent film than the dark comedy Stallone was imagining. Now Deadline reports that Stallone is moving quickly to find Kramer's replacement, and that Walter Hill is one of the top contenders.

The film's backer IM Global is careful to emphasize that HIll is just one of the few directors up for the job, but he's also the only one Deadline has Stallone talking about on record:

"I completely respect Walter's incredible body of work and hopefully this legendary director will become attached to the project."

Hill is indeed legendary, the director behind The Warriors and 48 Hrs. who's also shepherded the Alien franchise as a producer. He's on board as a producer on Prometheus, the Ridley Scott-directed Alien prequel-but-not-quite, but that commitment likely wouldn't keep him from also taking on Headshot, which is hoping to go into production before the summer starts. If that date is going to stay in place, we'll have a director confirmed fairly soon.