Agent 47, a professional assassin raised from childhood by a secret organization, receives what seems like a straightforward contract: kill the Russian president in public. After completing the job, he discovers he has been used in a political conspiracy and that his own employers, along with several security agencies, are hunting him. Forced to flee across Russia and beyond, he is compelled to team up with a woman who claims to have witnessed the crime, while trying to understand who is really pulling the strings. The story blends chase sequences, hand-to-hand fights and espionage intrigue, with an Interpol agent following his trail from the start.

How it was made

The project began in 2003, when the makers of the Hitman video game, Eidos and IO Interactive, opened talks with Hollywood studios about adapting the series. 20th Century Fox acquired the rights and commissioned Skip Woods to write the screenplay, based on a storyline developed by Louis Per Bruno. Vin Diesel, the executive producer, was initially set to star but stepped down in December 2006; Timothy Olyphant replaced him in January 2007, with Xavier Gens directing. Principal photography started in late March 2007 in Sofia, Bulgaria, and lasted twelve weeks, with a second unit shooting in several cities. After the initial cut, the release was delayed so that several scenes could be reshot, including a sword fight that moved from a station platform to a train carriage. Reports at the time indicated that Gens was removed from the final cut and that Nicolas de Toth handled the final editing. It was a co-production between the United States, France and the United Kingdom.

Reception and legacy

Hitman opened in the United States on November 21, 2007, followed by releases in the UK and France. Critics gave it mostly negative reviews, faulting its convoluted plot while praising Olyphant's performance. At the box office, however, it performed well, grossing about 101.3 million dollars against a budget of 24 million. A sequel was cancelled during production, and the character returned in the reboot Hitman: Agent 47, released in 2015. Over time, the film is remembered mainly as an early major-studio adaptation of a video game and as an example of the troubles that can beset such projects.