After embarrassing himself in the awful Annie remake last winter, Jamie Foxx is getting back into thriller territory with heist movie Blink. Noam Murro (300: Rise of an Empire) is in the director’s chair for the pic, which boasts a Black List script by Hernany Perla.
Details are scarce, but Foxx will take on the role of a hospital caregiver who comes across an unusual patient – the victim of a bank robbery, to whom there’s much more than meets the eye.
The last few years have been a decidedly mixed bag for Foxx. He was sensational in Quentin Tarantino’s 2012 Western Django Unchained, but the next summer saw action tentpole White House Down, largely dependent on the actor’s box office appeal, turn into a massive disappointment for Sony, especially when compared to the similarly-premised, much higher-grossing Olympus Has Fallen.
After that, Foxx played villain Electro in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, a performance that drew mixed reviews. Again, Sony took a write-down on the pic, and Foxx’s credibility as a draw was dealt a serious blow. He reprised the role of Dean “Motherfucka” Jones in Horrible Bosses 2, which was a hit, but the actor took a clear backseat to stars Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day. Most recently, Foxx anchored Will Gluck’s Annie redo, which was one of the worst films of 2014 despite earning a respectable amount at the box office.
Foxx has excelled in more action-packed parts, so perhaps Blink will be the project he needs to regain some credibility after toplining so many post-Django duds.
As for the helmer, I was in the apparent minority of viewers who felt that Murro’s 300 sidequel was a marked improvement over the original, thanks mostly to two factors: Eva Green’s batty performance, and the style and gusto with which the naval battle sequences were directed. If Murro brings similar verve and ambition to a more grounded project, the results will be very interesting to watch.
Blink rolls cameras this fall. No release date has been set.
