Former stuntman-turned-action screenwriter Madison Turner is now the latest subject of Netflix’s latest formal feature film announcement, The Ogun. The streamer signaled on Monday the addition of actor Anthony Mackie (Marvel Cinematic Universe) as star and producer on the new action thriller which also has Jason Michael Berman producing for Mandalay Pictures.
The Ogun centers on Mackie in the role of Xavier Rhodes, who brings his teenage daughter to Nigeria to find a cure for the rare genetic condition that he passed on to her. When his daughter is kidnapped, Rhodes goes on a rampage through the criminal underworld to find her before it’s too late, testing his powers to the limit.
The Hollywood Reporter‘s Borys Kit notes in his exclusive that the film is being tonally likened “in the vein of John Wick crossed with Dante’s Inferno”. A search for a director is already underway.
The film marks the continuation of Netflix’s relationship with Berman and Mackie who previously worked together on 2019 sci-fi, IO, starring Mackie and actress Margaret Qualley.
Mackie, slated appear next year in Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier with Sebastian Stan, remains ongoing with his streak of Netflix productions; The Point Blank star headlined season two of Altered Carbon, and is also slated for Mikael Håfström’s 2021 action sci-fi, Outside the Wire.
Turner previously set up his Blacklist script, “The Liberators”, at Warner Bros. with Michael B. Jordan’s Outlier Society and Safehouse Pictures attached. He is currently rewriting an adaptation of Ed Brubaker’s Kill or Be Killed for Thunder Road (John Wick, Sicario).
Berman’s Sundance award-winning upcoming film, Nine Days, will be released by Sony Pictures Classics in January. In addition to IO, he also worked on Netflix Original Films Uncorked, Otherhood, Burning Sands, The Last Days of American Crime, Little Evil, Amateur and Juanita, and is currently in production on Anthony Mandler’s Surrounded starring Letitia Wright, Jamie Bell and Michael K. Williams.