Sometimes, there’s just nothing better than an ‘on-the-run’ movie featuring mis-matched characters and a ticking clock. Presumably, this is the logic behind Hitman’s Bodyguard – an upcoming action movie that has just filled out its primary cast. It is an impressive cast, too – bringing together a trio of actors whose collective filmography includes many of the biggest, most successful films of the past two decades.
Academy Award nominee Samuel L. Jackson (Avengers: Age Of Ultron) will star as an infamous hitman who, it would seem, intends to turn himself over to the authorities and start singing like a proverbial canary. Ryan Reynolds (Safe House) will play the world’s best bodyguard, assigned to protect the hitman, with a 24 hour deadline to get him to the Hague. Matters are complicated by a lengthy history of deep-seated animosity between the two, in addition to the looming, sinister presence of the real villain of the piece, played by Academy Award nominee Gary Oldman (Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes).
What makes this an intriguing project is the dynamics between each of these three characters. It can be assumed that, since Oldman will play the ‘bad guy,’ he is the criminal that Jackson is set to implicate – creating a great deal of emotional baggage, and a loathing between them. It is clear that a similar tension will exist between the characters played by Jackson and Reynolds, too, while Reynolds and Oldman will experience a very present opposition, by contrast.
Hitman’s Bodyguard will be directed by Jeff Wadlow, whose eye for big-budget action was developed on Kick-Ass 2 in 2013. The script is the second screenwriting effort from Tom O’Connor, whose debut, Fire With Fire, attracted a similarly starry cast (albeit with fewer Academy Award nominations between them) in 2012. Principal photography is set to begin in April 2016 – including locations in Amsterdam, Bulgaria and the UK – at which point, we should discover which other performers will be joining the production.
