To date, cult favorite director Ryuhei Kitamura has been the only director to make titling a film “Versus”, as cool as he did with his own 2000 hit thriller. Nowadays out of the handful that would dare to make such a move comes screenwriting duo Alex Litvak and Michael Finch whose original action spec script – itself titled Versus – has been reportedly acquired by Universal Pictures.
Netflix has acquired new female-led speculative action thriller script, Kate, which is reportedly eyeing an April 2018 start date. Deadline’s latest exclusive on Thursday reveals $25 million dollar budget is being granted to the project, written by Umair Aleem (Extraction) which tells of a woman who has 24 hours to solve her own murder.
Casting is underway for the film, described as a hard-boiled actioner in the vein of Kill Bill and La Femme Nikita, with a female protagonist akin to the ideal likes of Cate Blanchett and Lee Marvin. The news, currently the talk of the town among major studios according to Deadline, comes as the film looks toward gaining from the streaming company’s latest ambitious announcement to generate eighty feature films next year – in this case with spec scripts such as Kate which usually land in development hell – likely with quality control as its primary linchpin.
“The normal major studio has six to 10 executives working on eight to 12 movies at a time,” said one exec at a major. “If there are five to 10 executives at Netflix, can they really oversee eight to 13 movies a year through production? They will have to be very careful or talent will soon realize that a quick payday isn’t worth the result, if too many of the films are invisible and forgettable, and were jammed through with not enough oversight.”
David Leitch (John Wick, upcoming Deadpool 2) and Kelly McCormick (pictured), respective debut director and producer of Charlize Theron-led Atomic Blonde are producing Kate with The Hunger Games and upcoming I, Tonya and Bright producer Bryan Unkeless. Scott Morgan is overseeing production for Clubhouse Pictures.