The theatrical schedule might be on the cusp of another industry-wide reshuffle after Sony’s Morbius, one of the 2021’s first major blockbusters, was pushed back by eight months from March to October, but business is booming for Netflix. The streaming service released a new trailer today hyping a stacked year for original movies, featuring some of the biggest names around.
Having already headlined the company’s most-watched in-house feature ever thanks to Extraction, which is poised to launch an entire cinematic universe never mind a franchise, Chris Hemsworth will be back on our screens later this year in Escape From Spiderhead. Based on the 2010 short story by George Saunders, it certainly sounds like it’ll be a trip.
In the future, convicted felons have the option to volunteer as test subjects for a series of experimental procedures in exchange for having their sentences reduced, with two prisoners forced to reckon with their own pasts during a drug-induced trip overseen by the mysterious head of the treatment program.
The brief glimpse of Escape From Spiderhead seen in the promo above at the 1:03 mark doesn’t exactly make that clear, but it does show that Chris Hemsworth looks as cool as ever when he’s chilling on a boat. Tron: Legacy and Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski is at the helm, so we at least know that it’ll be a visual treat, but wildly inconsistent Deadpool, Zombieland, G.I. Joe: Retaliation and 6 Underground writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick are on scripting duties, so it could really go either way on a narrative level.
Miles Teller and Birds of Prey‘s Jurnee Smollett are also on board, but with shooting having only started in November, we likely won’t be seeing Escape From Spiderhead until the tail end of 2021.
