Universal reportedly beat Netflix, Paramount and MGM to the punch to sign up the new film from John Wick co-director David Leitch.
Well, this certainly sounds exciting.
After what was supposedly a pretty intense bidding war, Deadline reports that Universal has paid a seven-figure sum to secure the package deal of Ryan Gosling as star, David Leitch as director and a script from Iron Man 3 scribe, Drew Pearce.
The film in question centres around a stuntman, presumably played by Gosling. It’s possible that Universal beat the other bidders to the punch as it has a first look deal with Leitch.
Leitch’s involvement is particularly interesting: as co-director of John Wick, he successfully made the transition from stuntman through to director, a Hollywood career path that not many are able to emulate. Since doing so, he and his former directing partner, Chad Stahelski, have gone to make some brilliant action flicks, with Leitch helming Atomic Blonde for instance.
Gosling’s involvement is also notable too: two of his finest roles to date were in Drive and The Place Beyond the Pines, where he played a stunt driver and a stunt motorcyclist respectively. It’s clearly a profession that interests him and with a talented former stuntman directing him, it’s exciting to imagine how he’ll push his performance further in this project.
Both men currently have busy slates: Leitch is in pre-production on the Sony project, Bullet Train, starring Brad Pitt, whilst Gosling has signed on to make The Gray Man for Netflix alongside Chris Evans, directed by the Russo brothers.
Nonetheless, it seems that all parties involved want to move quickly with this one so we’ll hopefully have more updates for you soon.
————
Thank you for visiting!
We are fundraising to keep our magazines going into 2021 – could you please support us or spread the word:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/filmstories2021/film-stories-and-film-stories-jr-2021-independent-magazines
Or become a Patron here.
Sign up for our email newsletter here.
Follow Film Stories on Twitter here, and on Facebook here.
Buy our Film Stories and Film Stories Junior print magazines here.
