Following news from July with the addition of Brad Pitt to David Leitch’s newest Sony Pictures’s venture, Bullet Train, comes word from Deadline‘s Justin Kroll that Japanese/British actor Andrew Koji has boarded the project. Also joining will be Slender Man actress Joey King with a script by Fear Street writer Zak Olkewicz.
Bullet Train is inspired by Maria Beetle, the 2010 Kadokawa Shoten publication from author Kotaro Isaka which, in the novel according to earlier trade news descriptions from Deadline, centers on five assassins who “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 one another.” As the rest of the plot notes, “The question becomes, who will make it off the train alive and what awaits them at the terminal station?”
Leitch will also be joined by Kelly McCormick in producing the pic via their 87North banner with Antoine Fuqua. Kat Samick is exec producing with Sony’s Brittany Morissey exec overseeing the production. CTB Inc.’s own Ryosuke Saegusa and Yuma Terada, who represent Isaka as well as the novel rights, will exec produce.
An English version of the novel will publish next year from Harvill Secker.
Koji is currently a few weeks away from the season two premiere of hit Cinemax series, Warrior. He will also be in Robert Schwentke’s G.I. Joe spin-off, Snake Eyes, set for an October 21, 2022 release from Paramount with Henry Golding starring.