Vince Flynn is an author of the New York Times bestseller Mitch Rapp series. He writes political and counter-terrorist thrillers, all of them starring CIA assassin/operative Mitch Rapp. His thrillers are gripping, fast paced, violent, and explosive. They’ve all got a touch of right wing American jingoism to them, but it’s the fun kind – i.e. the kind that American liberals and even the British love.

And you can take it from me; they’re pretty awesome.

There had been talk in some of the quieter regions of Hollywood about adapting Flynn’s Rapp books into movie form by CBS films. The sixth book in the series – Consent To Kill has a script written for it by Jonathan Lemkin (Lethal Weapon 4 & Shooter) that is still going around Hollywood. Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, Tears of the Sun, & Shooter) was chosen to direct.

But the studio abandoned that project. The first reason was because in 2010, Vince Flynn’s next installment to the series – American Assassin was a book featuring a younger Mitch Rapp – his training and initiation to the CIA, his first kill, and his first big takedown. The studio decided that was a better place to start from. The other reason is: Consent To Kill is a really bad place in the series to start from. I’m not going to tell you why, but you can take my word for that.

Last year, there was talk about Chris Hemsworth starring as Mitch Rapp for American Assassin. But that’s probably not going to happen. His younger brother Liam is a better choice for that anyway, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Bruce Willis will portray Stan Hurley (Rapp’s trainer)…which is actually kind of a perfect fit.

So what does any of this have to do with Olympus Has Fallen?

Olympus Has Fallen is a thriller about terrorists taking over the White House and scattering the Secret Service into pieces. When it is clear that the efforts of America’s national security forces outside the White House can do little, one exceptionally talented man must save them all.

And that’s pretty much a word-for-word description of Vince Flynn’s Transfer of Power – the first installment of the Mitch Rapp series. In that book, a group of jihadists (yes they’re Muslim terrorists; they still exist; get over it) storm the White House during a press conference and take it over. The only difference is that in the book, the Secret Service gets the President down into the bunker and seal it off, but the terrorists spend most of the book cutting their way through it. Mitch Rapp is brought in, he infiltrates the White House, and…yeah.

Now obviously, the idea of terrorists taking over the White House has been done before…most notably in the 7^th Season of 24. So this is probably a coincidence, right?

Maybe…but here’s where it gets better: Gerard Butler (who was one of the top candidates to play Rapp back in 2011) is the star of this film, playing instead a Secret Service agent – Mike Banning. And the director for Olympus Has Fallen is none other than Antoine Fuqua.

So while it could definitely be just a coincidence, this movie probably already has a guaranteed showing from any and all Vince Flynn fans, including me. If it was an adaptation, it would be a loose one at best – the way Die Hard is a loose adaptation of Nothing Lasts Forever.

Either way, Olympus Has Fallen is definitely a movie to keep an eye out for later this March, and if you ever get a chance, go pick up Transfer of Power by Vince Flynn. You’ll have a lot of fun with it.