The Challenge Star CT Tamburello Just Landed A Role In A Major Movie

After nearly 20 appearances on MTV's long-running competition show "The Challenge," reality star Chris "CT" Tamburello is jumping into a film role that makes use of his expertise in outlandish but high-stakes competitions.

Deadline reports that Tamburello is set to play the lead in a new film version of "The Most Dangerous Game," a classic 1924 short story by author Richard Connell that sees a mad aristocrat Zaroff hunt human prey on his isolated Caribbean island after growing bored with bagging big animals. Even if you didn't read the short story in high school, then you can't have escaped the long shadow it has cast over popular culture ever since. The story was most directly adapted in 1932's film by the same name, but has served as the model for films ranging from 1945's "A Game of Death" to 1994's Jean Claude Van Damme-starring "Hard Target," as well as the novels and subsequent films "The Running Man" and "The Hunger Games," according to The New York Times. It was also updated for a Quibi series starring Liam Hemsworth and Christoph Waltz in 2020. 

Tamburello is set to play Sanger Rainsford, the lead character in the story, who falls overboard while traveling to a hunting expedition of his own in South America, and swims to Ship-Trap Island. After refusing to join Zaroff on his side of a future contest, he is forced by the hunter into becoming his next quarry.

The new film will make some key changes to the original story. Instead of washing up alone on the island, the protagonists will include a father and son pair facing off against the villain. Because the name Zaroff was too subtle, evidently, the new hunter will be called Baron Von Wolf.

"The Most Dangerous Game" is being helmed by writer-director Justin Lee, whose previous work includes films such as "Final Kill," "Badland," and "Hunters." Joining Tamburello in the cast is "Platoon" and "Major League" actor Tom Berenger, who plays a man who has been hiding out on the island, avoiding Von Wolf and slowly losing his grasp on reality, according to Deadline. Additional cast members include Kevin Porter ("Dodgeball"), Elissa Dowling ("Girl on the Third Floor"), Edward Finlay ("2 Fast 2 Furious") and Randy Charach ("The Call.") No word yet on who will be playing Sanger's father or Baron Von Wolf.

For all his time spent on screen for MTV, Tamburello has just one film credit to his name, a role in 2019's psychological rave horror "Habitual." His director expresses the utmost confidence in him though, saying, "What Chris has brought to the table in the role of Sanger is beyond exceptional and I am very excited for the world to get to see what he is capable of as an actor," according to Deadline. The film is currently in production, but no release date has yet been set at this time.