Dave Bautista may have hung up his Drax the Destroyer role after the last volume of Guardians of the Galaxy, but he’s still in the action-comedy game.

Lionsgate Pictures announced Monday that it has acquired the worldwide distribution rights to The Killer’s Game, an actioner with a sense of humor. Bautista will star in the film, which will be helmed by JJ Perry (Day Shift).

Based on Jay Bonansinga’s novel of the same name, The Killer’s Game is the story of Joe Flood (Bautista), an assassin recently diagnosed with a terminal and painful illness. Determined to not suffer a slow, painful death, he orders a hit on himself…only to find out that he was misdiagnosed and is in fact perfectly healthy. That proves to be especially awkward, especially now that his former assassin colleagues are now gunning for him, John Wick-style.

This is a project long in the making: Paramount started pre-production in 2004 with Intermedia co-producing, after directors such as Alex Proyas, Renny Harlin, Wolfgang Petersen and John Woo had expressed an interest in the project.

The film was written by Rand Ravich and X-Men franchise screenwriter Simon Kinberg, with recent rewrites by James Coyne. Lionsgate will launch sales of the film at the Cannes Film Festival this month ahead of the start of production this summer. Mad Chance’s Andrew Lazar and Endurance Media’s Steve Richards will produce, with Endurance Media financing.

“Lionsgate is the perfect home for this project,” Richards said in a statement. “They have consistently proven their ability to connect action audiences with the best films in the genre. We are believers that The Killer’s Game is the perfect mix of action and comedy, and right now, there’s no one better at threading that needle than Dave Bautista. We can’t wait to get started.”