Not content with playing Gambit in last year's X-Men Origins: Wolverine, former Friday Night Lights star Taylor Kitsch has signed on to head up the upcoming movie based on the boardgame Battleship, where he'll play a large-scale version of the strategy game with aliens. No, seriously.

The role of heroic Naval commander, confirmed by the Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision blog - initially rumored to have gone to The Hurt Locker's Jeremy Renner, before scheduling conflicts stepped in - isn't the only big name sci-fi movie Kitsch will be seen in after his big break in last year's mutant movie; he's also taking the lead role in Pixar's live-action John Carter of Mars adaptation and, of course, rumored to be reappearing as Gambit in a future X movie for Fox. Clearly, Kitsch's agents are working overtime to get him as many potential franchise movie roles as possible... If only they'd thought about the fact that almost no-one outside of Hollywood and Battleship owner Hasbro actually wants to see a Battleship movie. Especially one where the opposing side is made up of alien invaders.