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While action fans await the return of John Wick to the big screen, titular star Keanu Reeves is now playing on new territory with Oliver Lowe’s upcoming novel, “Kill Current: A Jon Hendricks Thriller.”
Reeves is being tapped to star in the film which has since been acquired by Erik Feig’s The Arena for financing and production. The actor is also producing the project with Alexandra Grant via their Two Dragonflies label.
Deadline’s Matt Grobar provides more:
Kill Current is the first novel in a forthcoming thriller series centering Jon Hendricks, a burned-out CIA officer who is pulled back in to avenge the protégé he trained and lost. Offering a globe-spanning, edge-of-your-seat action thriller about shifting alliances and the race for the world’s most precious and valuable assets, the first novel from Lowe is slated for publication by Zando in May 2027.
Molly Stern, who founded Zando in 2020, is exec producing. There’s no word yet on who will helm the action pic.
Explaining the draw of the source material, Zando’s founder and CEO, Stern, said: “Oliver Lowe’s masterful story, the first in his upcoming Jon Hendricks series, is poised to reinvent the geopolitical thriller for the modern era. Kill Current is rooted in the issues shaping today’s world — semi-conductors, global supply chains, technological and information warfare. It delivers the fast-paced, globe-trotting read and complex, intriguing characters that thriller fans of any era crave.”
The actor told Deadline: “I’m excited and grateful for the opportunity to develop the character Jon Hendricks with these wonderful collaborators and that this is the project that launches Two Dragonflies which I share with my partner, Alexandra Grant.”
Grant added, “Taking Kill Current from publishing into film form, and aligning with The Arena, Oliver Lowe and Zando is the kind of creative work Keanu and I have set up Two Dragonflies to do.”
The project adds to a continual slate of films with Reeves attached. Among the lot is Masashi Kawamura’s stop-motion jidaigeki thriller, Hidari, which attached Reeves as the lead voice actor back in May out of Cannes Annecy Showcase. He also has Tim Miller’s new sci-fi, Shiver, in production for the new year along with a return to the role of Shadow in Jeff Fowler’s Sonic The Hedgehog 4, and for all intents and purposes, another installment in the John Wick franchise at Lionsgate if they’re willing.
Watch the book and production’s exclusive teaser announcement over at Deadline.