Frank Castle, a member of Splinter Cell?

It mightn’t have made a lot of bank, but "The Punisher" has perceptibly done one thing : Convince studios that star Thomas/Tom/Tommy/TJ Jane is well and truly capable of carrying an action pic. Throw him a singlet, give him three days warning to grow a half-beard and furnish him with a Hatfield-Pedersoli brass patch box muzzle loading rifle, and he’ll “Bring it”.

According to insider ‘Bartok’, Jane’s in talks with Paramount to headline the recently announced film version of the game “Splinter Cell”.

The actor – also attached to film a sequel to “The Punisher” sometime down the track – would play Sam Fisher, a field operative of a secretive "black-ops" NSA sub-agency called Third Echelon. Alone, yet armed with some of the best hi-tech weapons on the market, Fisher is geared up to infiltrate and neutralize the enemy – all without leaving a trace. Fisher is sent into action when two CIA agents mysteriously disappear in Azerbaijan.

“Paramount and [Director, Peter] Berg like him”, he says. “It’ll probably come down to whether there’s any scheduling conflicts and the script – which Berg and JT are doing”.

The scooper also tells us that “Splinter Cell”, is filling the pro tempore void of the Tom Clancy films. “They’re doing this instead. At least until they decide what they’re going to do about the Ryan pics”.

Ben Affleck was set to reprise his role as CIA analyst Jack Ryan for a film called “Red Rabbit”, but with his track record of late – read : box office poison – the studio’s not exactly keen to invest much in that series at the moment (Personally, I think they’ll recast). On the other hand, Clancy’s “Rainbow Six”, which features the character of John Clark (played in “Sum of All Fears” by Liev Schreiber – who I doubt will be back for the feature, they’ll want a ‘name’) is supposedly in development there, with John Woo attached.

I don’t mind the idea of Jane playing Fisher in "Splinter". Hope it comes off.