Folks who took a liking to season one of The Terminal List will be in good company going forward as Amazon revs up season two of the hit series, according to the trades on Wednesday. With series main Chris Pratt back on board, the company is also moving forward with a prequel to expand on the character played by Pratt’s season one co-star, Taylor Kitsch.
AMERICAN ASSASSIN follows the rise of Mitch Rapp (Dylan O’Brien), a CIA black ops recruit under the instruction of Cold War veteran Stan Hurley (Michael Keaton). The pair is then enlisted by CIA Deputy Director Irene Kennedy (Sanaa Lathan) to investigate a wave of apparently random attacks on both military and civilian targets. Together the three discover a pattern in the violence leading them to a joint mission with a lethal Turkish agent (Shiva Negar) to stop a mysterious operative (Taylor Kitsch) intent on starting a World War in the Middle East.
With production officially set to commence next month, THR writes that actor Taylor Kitsch will star as the villain in director Michael Cuesta’s forthcoming novel adaptation, American Assassin. The film is inspired by Vincent Flynn’s 2010 novel, an origin story among the 14-book collection outlining the popular “Mitch Rapp” series from Simon & Schuster.
Kitsch joins opposite Maze Runner trilogy star Dylan O’Brien in the role of Rapp, an Arab linguistics student and counter terrorisim operative who, following the death of his fiancée, takes to task for a series of covert missions under the supervision of Cold War veteran and reluctant mentor Stan Hurley, played by Michael Keaton. Rapp and Hurley are subsequently directed by the CIA to investigate a wave of civilian and military attacks that force them to stop a terrorist plot that could ensue in World War III.
Di Bonaventura Pictures and Nick Wechsler Productions will produce the film while shoots are scheduled for locations in London and Budapest. CBS Films and Lionsgate co-financing the film with the former handling production and marketing, and the latter distributing.
Pre-production for the upcoming remake of director Gareth Huw Evans’s 2011/2012 cult smash hit, The Raid is well underway before its forthcoming film schedule next Spring. Several popular names made the rumormill in the last few months before it was officially reported that Captain America: The Winter Soldier and The Purge: Anarchy co-star Frank Grillo would be the first among the names attached for the new film to be helmed by The Expendables 3 helmer Patrick Hughes.
On Monday, the production finally saw its male lead attached in the form of actor Taylor Kitsch (Savages, Battleship, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Lone Survivor), accroding to forwarded reports from Comingsoon.net. The new film will see Kitsch starring in Hughes‘s Hollywood adaptation centered on an elite DEA fast team who get trapped inside a tenanment building behind enemy lines, fortified by a powerful drug lord and his army of loyal, bloodthirsty killers. It’s no secret either that Kitsch has some pretty big shoes to fill considering the first film from Evans, the kickstarter of its own franchise, is led by actor and genuine martial artist Iko Uwais, whose latest appearance in this year’s The Raid 2 has become an even bigger cult hit around the world.
The film is being written by Out Of The Furnace co-scribe Brad Inglesby for Screen Gems, the studio developing the remake. International sales agent XYZ Films is producing the film as well, with Uwais and the original team reportedly designing the fights.
Stay tuned for more casting news!
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