Millenium was already turning the gears at Cannes this past summer for newly announced sequel, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, following Patrick Hughes’ inaugural hit last year starring Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson. Going forward, production is expected to commence in March with Hughes back in the director’s chair and U.S. release plans now in the hands of Lionsgate according to Scott Roxborough’s update at The Hollywood Reporter.
Hughes directed The Hitman’s Bodyguard which centered on a disgraced bodyguard whose troubled past with a hitman sees the two on a raucous journey of survival while a mad dictator – the subject of a war crimes investigation by the Hague – sends for their deaths. The film earned more than $180 million dollars globally while the sequel will also reunite Reynolds and Jackson once more with actress Salma Hayek back in the role of wife to Jackson’s character.
Brandon and Phillip Murphy are penning the sequel based on a story by Hughes which, according to the report, “sees plans by bodyguard Michael Bryce (Reynolds) to swear off violence derailed when hitman Kincaid (Jackson) and his wife Sonia (Hayek) entangle him in their mission to wreak havoc along the Amalfi Coast in an attempt to save Europe.”. No word if the earlier-touted tagline, “The Good, The Bad and The Bat-shit Cray” will stick, but I’d keep it. I dig it.
Milleniun Media’s Matt O’Toole and Les Weldon are producing with Campbell Grobman Films. Exec producing are Millenium’s Avi Lerner, Trevor Short, Boaz Davidson, Jeffrey Greenstein and Jonathan Yunger, and Campbell Grobman’s Lati Grobman and Christa Campbell.