Zhang Yimou is directing

According to JoBlo, William Dafoe has officially signed on to join Matt Damon in The Great Wall.

The Great Wall is a retelling of the origin of China’s great wonder.

Dafoe’s character is under wraps at the moment, but Damon will star as a soldier who is a part of a group of mercenaries traveling to China in order to bring back gunpowder to Europe. However, along their journey they are attacked by mystical beasts. Damon’s character will find himself in a way between a secret warrior clan and the beasts.

Dafoe is coming off a great year, where he was a part of the ensemble of Wes Anderson’s Oscar-nominated film The Grand Budapest Hotel. He also appeared in the hit The Fault In Our Stars and A Most Wanted Man. He capped off the year with his role in John Wick, the Keanu Reeves film that surprised everybody.

Zhang Yimou (Hero, The Flowers of War) will be directing the feature, which has been a pet project of Thomas Tull, CEO of Legendary, who developed the idea with World War Z writer Max Brooks.

They will start filming in China this April.