Deadline is reporting actor Ryan Gosling has signed on to star in an untitled stuntman drama for Universal Pictures that will be directed by David Leitch (John Wick, Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 3) from a script penned by Drew Pearce (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Iron Man 3, Hotel Artemis, Hobbs & Shaw).
Plot details on the project are currently tight-lipped but Ryan previously played a stuntman in the thriller Drive for director Nicolas Winding Refn.
Universal landed the project with a seven-figure deal after reported interest from Netflix, Paramount Pictures, and MGM Studios.
Leitch is currently making the Brad Pitt action flick Bullet Train for Sony Pictures.
Gosling recently attached himself to a new Wolfman film from Invisible Man writer/director Leigh Whannell that is at Universal Pictures as well.
Ryan is also set to co-star with Captain America actor Chris Evans on the Netflix spy thriller The Gray Man directed by The Russo Brothers, one of the most expensive films ever produced at the streaming service.
Deadline reports the latest addition to the upcoming Japanese-set action-thriller starring recent Oscar-winner Brad Pitt and directed by David Leitch (Deadpool 2, John Wick, Hobbs & Shaw), as Andrew Koji will play one of the many assassins in the film traveling on a Japanese bullet train.
Koji is best known for his Cinemax series Warrior and will play the new Storm Shadow in the G.I. Joe prequel film Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins for Paramount Pictures, which is expected to become a reoccurring franchise role as multiple G.I. Joe movies are in the works.
Joey King also has a role in the film.
Filming on Bullet Train is expected to begin this fall in Los Angeles, California.
Lionsgate is really keen on keeping John Wick franchise director Chad Stahelski at the studio, as Deadline reports they’ve attached to him a direct a spec-script titled Arcana they just picked up from Predators screenwriters Michael Finch and Alex Litvak.
A gritty urban fantasy set in the hidden world of magical clans.
The project seems to be in the director’s wheelhouse as he has been developing a reboot of the sci-fi fantasy action franchise Highlander, which could materialize as either a film or television series.
Stahelski will produce via 87Eleven Entertainment.
Chad will be a little busy for the foreseeable future with Lionsgate hoping to shoot John Wick: Chapter 4 and John Wick: Chapter 5 back-to-back. The fourth installment is expected to begin production once Keanu Reeves completes his work on Matrix 4 possibly in 2021.
Earlier in the year, John Wick creator Derek Kolstad suggested that John Wick: Chapter 5 could be the final installment of the franchise, it looks like Lionsgate is indeed moving forward with that installment much sooner than we had expected.
On the Lionsgate earnings call yesterday (via The Hollywood Reporter), CEO Jon Feltheimer revealed their current plan is to hopefully shoot both John Wick: Chapter 4 and John Wick: Chapter 5 back-to-back.
Hinting they could both begin production next year depending on Keanu’s schedule.
FELTHEIMER: “We’re also busy preparing scripts for the next two installments of our John Wick action franchise, with John Wick 4 slated to hit theaters Memorial Day weekend 2022. We hope to shoot both John Wick 4 and 5 back-to-back when Keanu becomes available early next year.”
This is likely due to the delays on John Wick 4 after Keanu’s filming of Matrix 4 happened to land squarely during the pandemic and production was ultimately paused until recently where it seemingly has resumed in Germany.
It would be expected that both director Chad Stahelski and Keanu Reeve are returning for John Wick 5.
Pushing forward with John Wick 5 is likely more of a way to finalize the franchise and making sure they have everything tied up in a nice bow, the extra development time during the pandemic also possibly led to the fifth installment being pushed into script phases. Another reason could be to essentially shoot it as one big movie and save production costs.
Filming on John Wick: Chapter 4 is expected to begin sometime next year once Keanu completes his work on Matrix 4 and the studio recently gave it a new release date of May 27th, 2022.
The fourth installment is expected to see John (Reeves) and The Bowery King (Fishburne) going to war with The High Table, the mysterious group that controls their violent world of assassins.
This would further delay Chad’s Highlander reboot as well.
Lionsgate is also looking to expand the franchise with spinoffs including a Starz series titled The Continental and Len Wiseman’s upcoming female-led action flick Ballerina both directly set in the world of John Wick.
Deadline reports that John Wick trilogy director Chad Stahelski and creator Derek Kolstad have joined New Line Cinema’s upcoming English remake of the South Korean film The Man From Nowhere. Chad will produce the remake via 87Eleven Entertainment with Derek tackling the script.
The original film centered around a quiet pawnshop keeper with a violent past who takes on a drug-and-organ trafficking ring in hope of saving the child who is his only friend.
Chad is currently helping out on The Matrix 4 action sequences, is expected to direct John Wick: Chapter 4 next, is behind a spinoff series titled The Continental, and is developing a reboot of the Highlander franchise for Lionsgate.
Kolstad is a busy bee working on Marvel Studios’ upcoming Disney+ series The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, a feature film adaptation of the video game Just Cause, and recently was tapped by Netflix to tackle two seasons of an animated series based on the video game franchise Splinter Cell.
It’ll be interesting who they end up casting in the lead role and how different this version will be from the original.
This isn’t the first or last American remake of popular Asian-made films. A Parasite series is in the works at HBO and Martin Scorsese’s The Departed is an Americanized take on Infernal Affairs.
Deadline has a new update concerning the Just Cause movie from Constantin Film and Prime Universe that has been in development with a script from John Wick creator Derek Kolstad (The Falcon & The Winter Soldier).
Their report reveals that they’ve now hired Canadian director Mike Dowse to handle the video game adaptation.
The film will follow the video game’s blueprint, as Rico Rodriguez is on a race-against-time mission to stop the mercenary group The Black Hand. The series draws its name from the real-life U.S. invasion of Panama, code-named “Operation Just Cause.” Rodriguez (aka “The Scorpion”) has become one of the few Latino iconic video game characters. He has a signature “agent of chaos” approach to taking down the bad guys.
Dowse’s previous efforts include It’s All Gone Pete Tong, Goon and Stuber.
According to Deadline, Oscar-winner Brad Pitt will be reuniting with Deadpool 2 director David Leitch on Sony’s upcoming action flick Bullet Train taking a lead role.
There are finally some details revealed about the film as well.
Bullet Train is based on the Japanese novel Maria Beetle by Kotaro Isaka and was penned by screenwriter Zak Olkewicz.
In the novel, five assassins find themselves on a fast moving bullet train from Tokyo to Morioka with only a few stops in between. They discover their missions are not unrelated to each other. The question becomes who will make it off the train alive and what awaits them at the terminal station?
Leitch is best-known as co-directing the first John Wick film then moving on to his solo directing career on projects such Atomic Blonde, Hobbs & Shaw, and the previously mentioned Deadpool sequel where Pitt cameos as the Vanisher.
There had been some expectations that production could begin before the end of the year.
Director David Leitch has landed yet another studio action project according to The Hollywood Reporter. The co-director of John Wick will return to the world of assassins with Bullet Train for Sony Pictures and they’re hoping to begin sometime in the fall.
They’ve also provided a brief idea of what to expect from the project. Its script is being handled by Fear Street screenwriter Zak Olkewicz.
Bullet Train centers on a group of hitmen and assassins with conflicting motives on a train in Tokyo.
Oddly enough, Bullet Train shares it’s title with an existing Japanese film from 1975 directed by Jun’ya Satô with legendary action stars Sonny Chiba (The Street Fighter, Kill Bill) and Ken Takakura (Black Rain, The Yakuza) in leading roles. I’m curious if the original film from Japan will have any influence on this new project.
Sony is hopeful because of the contained setting of the project (on a train) they’ll be able to limit the number of people on set during the filming.
David’s previous releases all have strong action sequences which has helped him gain the reputation of a solid action film director, thanks to his background in stunts.
At one point, Antoine Fuqua was attached to direct.
The director has been putting together multiple deals to make multiple films at various studios, but I’m unsure if he’ll be able to make all of them. Here is a rundown of the other various projects that David has been reportedly attached to direct over the last year or so.
A feature adaptation of the Ubisoft video game The Division for Netflix with Jessica Chastain and Jake Gyllenhaal attached to star.
A remake of the classic Bruce Lee martial arts action film Enter The Dragon for Warner Bros. Pictures.
Undying Love, a vampire action film set in Hong Kong and based on the Image Comics property.
A feature film remake of the classic David Carradine series Kung Fu.
Leitch is also producing a string of upcoming releases such as the Universal action flick Nobody starring Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul) coming to theaters on February 26th, 2021, the Toyko-set Netflix assassin film Kate starring Elizabeth Winstead (Birds of Prey), and the recently announced memory loss thriller for STX titled Fast & Loose.
While sequels to Hobbs & Shaw, Atomic Blonde, and Deadpool 2 are said to be in early development stages. It remains to be seen if David will return to direct those projects.
While director Chad Stahelski is waiting for Matrix 4 to complete before he can begin shooting John Wick: Chapter 4, he’s also still developing a feature film reboot of the beloved 1980s action film Highlander starring Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, and Clancy Brown.
The original 1986 film spawned multiple sequels and a couple of television shows.
HIGHLANDER – An immortal Scottish swordsman must confront the last of his immortal opponents, a murderously brutal barbarian who lusts for the fabled “Prize”.
Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Chad gave some insight and updates on the current status of the Highlander project.
STAHELSKI: “As far as Highlander goes, it’s a project I’ve been working on for a little over three years now. It’s a project that’s not only near and dear to my heart but also the other creative people that are involved in it. It’s something that we feel we’ve got a good direction on. It’s just a tough nut to crack because the Highlander property is so involved and the mythology is so deep. But to try and make it our own, and be somewhat true to the original, yet do it in a way that makes it ours, is a little tricky. We don’t want to do a remake. We don’t want to do a reinvention. We want to do something that’s fresh, that utilizes the mythology of what everyone loves from the first movie. To make a good film is hard, to make a great film is even harder. We choose challenging projects in trying to be new and diverse — at least something that the audience hasn’t exactly seen our way yet. So, time is always a good thing, but I think I have a knack for picking projects that aren’t easy to develop. So, that’s good, I guess.“
He was also asked to give his pitch to the younger John Wick fans, who might not be familiar with the Highlander property given that it really hasn’t had a modern incarnation.
STAHELSKI: “It’s a cool story about… I call it the burden of immortality problem. You’ve got a group of individuals that, for some cosmic reason, have been allocated to be immortal. They have to live through human times and experience the human experience over centuries. The caveat to that being everyone you love or anyone whom you can bond with, you’re going to outlive. And the only people you can relate to, other immortals, the one simple truth is that there can be only one of you at the end. So, that means the only people you can relate to or actually become friends with want to take your head. So, how do you live through life with that kind of loneliness or that kind of burden upon you, knowing that you have to push love aside and you have to push friendship aside? And still learn every fighting style in the world because at the end of it, it’s one big gladiatorial pit over centuries, that there can be only one. And your mission in life is to survive, learn as much as you can and sword fight to the death. Come on. If you can’t get behind that, done to some really cool music, I don’t know what you’re doing.“
When Highlander will begin shooting remains to be seen as Chad has been mulling over potentially tackling a series (likely at Starz) to help flush-out the mythology to a new generation that might be unfamiliar with the mythology.
John Wick: Chapter 4 is officially on deck next with a May 2022 release date and is presumed to begin shooting sometime in 2021.
It was recently reported by Deadline that the director is putting together another action film at Paramount Pictures that would focus around cars/driving with a script penned by Andrew Nemec and Josh Appelbaum.
There were also some teases last month from John Wick franchise writer/creator Derek Kolstad while speaking with Comic Book that John Wick: Chapter 5 is a possibility, which could be the final installment of the Wick franchise.
KOLSTAD: “Because when you look at having been a part of establishing and building out the foundation of this world, you sign that first contract, I’m a nobody. I am part and parcel with both a part of it and not, and yet you just want to give it your blessing and have them play and have them play well. I’m not like a George Lucas in this capacity.”
“I am the guy who wrote the spec that got made and I was blessed enough to be part of three, and hope, in a certain respect, to be a part elsewhere. The studios reminding me again and again that it’s become bigger than me, but that is as iconic a studio line as you can hear. And yet, it’s been a fucking joy.”
I guess we’ll have to wait and see what Lionsgate ultimately does with the property.
THE RONIN 