It’s been more than twenty years for any move to cinema with Jay Boninsaga’s 1997 novel, The Killer’s Game. The film finally has a home with Lionsgate launching international sales for the adaptation which now has stunt professional and second unit director J.J. Perry lined-up to direct his second feature since Netflix hit vampire actioner, Day Shift with Jamie Foxx.
Filming begins this summer for Perry with Guardians Of The Galaxy franchise actor Dave Bautista starring as Joe Flood as a principled veteran assassin who learns he is dying. Thinking his days are numbered and refusing suicide as it goes against his Catholic principles, he stakes a multi-million dollar prize on his own life, only to realize two things: One – that he’s been misdiagnosed and is still in perfect health, and Two – his girlfriend is preganant. Now the two will have to race across Europe in order to outrun the cadre of hungry gamesmen now out for blood and a six-figure boost.
James Coyne applied recent rewrites to a script by Rand Ravich and Simon Kinberg (X-Men franchise) Andrew Lazar will produce for Mad Chance alongside Steve Richards for Endurance Media, which is financing the project, as well as Kia Jam. Bautista and Jonathan Meisner will exec produce for Dogbone Entertainment, along with Scott Lambert, with Jake Katofsky and Vanessa Humphrey co-producing.
The Killer’s Game was previously on the roster for Capstone Group with a brewing cast prior to its lapse. Bautista’s next screen appearance will be in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two which opens in theaters this November.
Read more at Deadline.