Long before Fast and Furious developed into a lucrative juggernaut, director Rob Cohen blended genres to create the original cult hit in 2001, The Fast and the Furious. Taking the undercover cop template made successful by Kathryn Bigelow’s Point Break and infusing it with a street-racing drama, Cohen’s genre hybrid proved to overly successful – more so financially than critically – and the filmmaker will hope to pull off a similar feat with Category 5.
Charting the daring journey of one tight-knight group of tech wizards aiming to infiltrate a military compound hiding in plain sight amid a small coastal town, the movie plays to the beats of your average heist film. With their eyes firmly trained on a bounty north of $100 million, the hackers begin about enacting their seemingly foolproof plan, though disaster strikes when a category 5 hurricane comes barrelling off the sea.
On paper, it’s a concoction that takes tropes from heist films and ramps up the stakes by tossing in a natural disaster. Of the people left remaining in the town, one meteorologist and a female treasury agent then find themselves caught between the thieves and the relentless force of Mother Nature.
In the works over at Foresight Unlimited, it’s understood the production company will handle foreign sales of Cohen’s feature, with plans now in place to present Category 5 in Berlin next month. In a statement, Mark Damon welcomed the appointment of Rob Cohen with open arms:
“Rob Cohen is an incredibly smart and inventive action director and we are delighted to be part of “Category 5”. Windhauser’s script details an extraordinary race against the elements, which we are confident, with Cohen’s vision, will be a breathtaking adventure for audiences worldwide.”
As for the director himself, he’s also chomping at the bit to get back behind the lens; specifically with the kind of adrenaline-fuelled actioner that helped establish his career in its formative years.
“Crossing a heist movie set amidst the intense action of a natural disaster was an idea to which I truly responded,” said Cohen. “It’s a chance for me to get back to my roots in doing the adrenaline-pumped action/special effects films I love to create.”
Foresight intends for Category 5 to get the cameras rolling in late spring/early summer of 2016, before unleashing the titular storm at some point in 2017.
