Wahlberg will appear in a new unscripted A&E series about family-owned restaurant Wahlburgers alongside his mother and brothers Donnie and Paul. But the actor and producer shoots down any comparison to that other famous set of reality TV siblings.
"No, no. It's very different. It's very different. Nothing against them. They've been hugely successful," he said in an interview Tuesday before the premiere of his war film "Lone Survivor." ''It's just about building a family business. Uh, it's just very different, very different."
In "Lone Survivor," Wahlberg portrays Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, part of a mission gone wrong in the mountains of Afghanistan in 2005. Nineteen Americans were killed in a firefight and helicopter rescue attempt.
Luttrell, now retired from the military, wrote a best-selling book about his experience and attended the AFI Fest premiere in Hollywood.
"I thought there was pressure playing Micky Ward (in "The Fighter") until I signed on to play Marcus," Wahlberg said. "Considering what he and his team members went through and what they sacrificed and the amount of loss that was suffered by their families, there was a lot of pressure to get it right and make them proud."
The film, directed by Peter Berg, also stars Taylor Kitsch, Ben Foster and Emile Hirsch. It's set to open wide on Jan. 10, while the "Wahlburgers" TV series begins airing later that month.
Wahlberg, 42, stars in the next "Transformers" film and is producing an "Entourage" movie set to start shooting next year. He says the "Entourage" story won't pick up right where the HBO series ended two years ago: "It will be a little further down the line."
He's hoping to at least equal the big-screen output of another popular HBO series, "Sex and the City," which made two movies.
"We want to make a big hit movie that the fan base and a new audience can enjoy. And then we want to do it again and not mess it up," he said. "Which is not an easy thing to do, but you know we've been doing it for quite some time and the show I always felt just got better and better."
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