You may know him as Francis, but Ed Skrein has now landed the ‘big bad’ gig of the upcoming adaptation of Alita: Battle Angel.

The Hollywood Reporter has word that the Deadpool actor will be playing the cyborg Zapan, a villain who is in possession of the uber-powerful Damascus Blade. Skrein joins a cast that is currently made up of Rosa Salazar as Alita, Christoph Waltz as Doctor Dyson, and Jackie Earl Haley in a mystery role.

Alita: Battle Angel is a manga tale set in the 26th century and which centres on the titular Alita, an amnesiac cyborg who is literally picked up off a scrapheap by Doc Dyson. Given a timely rebuild, Alita soon uses her martial arts expertise to hunt down a whole host of nefarious criminal sorts.

Despite James Cameron having been developing the film for an age, the man currently tasked with helming Alita is Robert Rodriguez due to Cameron’s hectic Avatar schedule which sees him working on four Avatar sequels at the moment.

Alita: Battle Angel is due to go into production next month.