Fast and Furious stalwart Michelle Rodriguez has been tapped to star in Widows, a new heist thriller from Brit director Steve McQueen.
Word comes by way of Deadline, revealing that Rodriguez now joins a preliminary cast comprised of the Oscar-nominated Viola Davis (Fences) and Cynthia Erivo. Gone Girl scribe Gillian Flynn has been tapped to write the script alongside McQueen, with Lynda LaPlante’s 1983 British miniseries acting as the source material.
Perhaps most exciting of all is the fact that Widows heralds Steve McQueen’s first return to filmmaking since his Oscar win for 12 Years a Slave. That’s not to say that the writer-director hasn’t been keeping busy, given McQueen’s commitment to the now-shelved Codes of Conduct limited series at HBO. The network’s decision to postpone the project has essentially opened up an avenue back to feature filmmaking for McQueen, and Widows really kicks into gear when “four armed robbers are killed during a failed heist and their surviving widows join forces and resolve to pull off the next raid themselves.” Davis, Erivo and now Rodriguez will play three of those four kick-ass protagonists, so we fully expect New Regency to announce their fourth and final principal lead in the coming weeks.
New Regency is expected to get the cameras rolling on Widows before the year’s end. Rodriguez, meanwhile, will soon reprise the role of Letty in time for The Fate of the Furious, which promises to push and pull at the Toretto crew like never before when F. Gary Gray’s sequel crashes into theaters on April 14th.
Published: Feb 16, 2017 06:14 pm