Sylvester Stallone is currently underway maintaining two long-standing nostalgia IPs at the moment, but that hasn’t stopped him and producer Braden Aftergood from growing over at Balboa Productions with several new TV and film prospects. Principally, the initial focus of Amanda N’Duka’s report at Deadline centers on Samaritan, and an adaptation of James Byron Huggins’ 1999 novel, Hunter.
Not much was divulged in the report for Samaritan which is being nonetheless described as “a dark, fresh take on the superhero genre”, for which Stallone will star as production aims for a 2019 start. Published by Simon & Schuster and re-released just this year nearly a decade after Stallone nabbed the rights for an alternative take on Rambo once upon a time, Hunter, which pits its title hero, Nathaniel, a highly-skilled tracker employed to hunt down a raging half-human beast created by a renegade agency, is currently in seach of a writer.
Balboa Productions is also in development with an adaptation of St. Martin’s Press memoir publication, “Ghost: My Thirty Years as an FBI Undercover Agent”. One other film stake at hand is a spec ops feature to be written by retired Army Ranger Max Adams, which is reportedly being backed by China-based Starlight Cultural Entertainment along with Hunter and Ghost.
The news comes following the launch of Balboa Productions back in May with the announcement of an MGM-backed biopic centered on Jack Johnson, the first African American heavyweight champion from 1908 to 1915. Stallone’s next outing will be in Creed 2 on November 21 while a releases remain pending for Escape Plan 3: Devil’s Station and Brian A. Miller’s Backtrace.
The actor’s current filming involvement, Rambo: Last Blood, will mark his fifth and final entry in the Rambo franchise that began on the big screen in 1982 hailing from David Morell’s original novel. That film joins Stallone with actresses Paz Vega, Adriana Barraza and Yvette Monreal, and actor Sergio Peris-Mencheta with Adrian Grunberg directing for Lionsgate.