The Frank Castle that comic book fans have come to know and enjoy will be quite different from the Frank Castle that Thomas Jane will bring to the silver screen April 16 whe "The Punisher" opens in the U.S.

The Marvel/Artisan film, written and directed by Jonathan Hensleigh, will show that the film is not just fueled by vigilantism. It's fueled by pure vengeance.

"I had to ask myself intellectual questions like, 'To what extend to crimes against a person become so unconscionable, so heinous, that even a person who does not believe in vigilantism can resort to vigilantism in a more just way?'" Hensleigh recently told Sci-Fi Wire. "That was the equation for me. I told Marvel that I didn't just want to do a revenge story, that I wanted to do the mother of all revenge stories. I wanted to ramp everything up. I can't really go further without doing spoilers here. The underlying events that give rise to Frank Castle's vigilantism are not from the comic. I invented a lot of that. I made it a lot worse."

The story centers around Castle returning to Tampa, Fla., following the deaths of his wife and son in Puerto Rico. Apparently Howard Saint (John Travolta) who ordered the execution thinks that Castle is dead as well. But he isn't. And he's back for blood.

"There's no way around that," Hensleigh said. "That is the way that 'The Punisher' was originally created by Marvel, and this is certainly part of the DNA of Garth Ennis' treatment of 'The Punisher.' If you are going to be in any way faithful to the underlying material, you have to go down that road, and you have to embrace it."

Hensleigh, a former attorney, said that despite writing and directing the movie, he definitely doesn't condone anyone else taking the route that Castle takes -- no matter who kills your family.

"It sort of runs counter to my politics," he said. "I believe that if you're aggrieved, that you should call law enforcement and have the person arrested and prosecuted."

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