With Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Cowboy Ninja Viking delayed indefinitely, Chris Pratt has found himself with an open slot in his schedule and Taylor Sheridan appears to be the beneficiary, as Pratt is in talks to star in the next action thriller from the writer-director of Wind River.

Sheridan wrote the script, which follows an ex-special forces commando (Pratt) who is recruited by the DEA to lead a black ops strike team targeting drug dealers who are being protected by the CIA. David Heyman is producing the Warner Bros. film, which has the working title of Fast. Sheridan has been meeting with top actors since the summer, and needed to land an A-lister to secure a greenlight from WB given the film's budget, which is reportedly in the $75 million range.

According to Variety, which broke the news, the project is being developed as a potential franchise -- and why wouldn't it be? After all, the two franchises that Pratt has signed on to, Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World, have done blockbuster business at the box office. It only makes sense that Warner Bros. would want its own potential Pratt franchise.

Personally, I think this is a smart move for Pratt, who needs to do something a bit grittier than the four-quadrant fare audiences have grown accustomed to seeing him in -- and sorry, but the Denzel Washington-led remake of The Magnificent Seven isn't what I'm talking about. Pratt needs to get his hands dirty, and I think Sheridan is the perfect filmmaker to bring out that darker side of him. I know he's playing the hero again here, but from the description of the logline, I'm guessing it's a very different kind of hero than Peter Quill and Owen Grady.

Pratt is coming off the box office behemoths Avengers: Infinity War and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, which have grossed more than $3 billion worldwide between them. He's represented by UTA and Rise Management.

Sheridan is the acclaimed writer behind the Sicario franchise and David Mackenzie's heist movie Hell or High Water, which earned the scribe his first Oscar nomination. He also created the hit Kevin Costner-led Western series Yellowstone for Paramount Network and adapted the thriller novel Dark Invasion as a potential starring vehicle for producer Bradley Cooper. He's repped by CAA and Elevate Entertainment.