'Bullet Train', About A Group Of Assassins On A Speeding Train, Coming From Director David Leitch

David Leitch, director of Deadpool 2, Atomic Blonde, and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, is catching a ride on the Bullet Train. Leitch will direct the action pic which focuses on a group of assassins all on the same train. Talk about awkward. Zak Olkewicz, writer of the upcoming R.L. Stine adaptation Fear Street, is tackling the script, with Leitch taking part in revisions.The Hollywood Reporter has the news on Bullet Train, which "centers on a group of hitmen and assassins with conflicting motives on a train in Tokyo" and is being compared to films like Speed and the 2014 Liam Neeson movie Non-Stop. The plan is to shoot Bullet Train this fall, with the understanding being that since the film is meant to be shot on one contained set, it'll be easier to operate under the new coronavirus-influenced health restrictions that film productions need to take into consideration.

Sony is distributing, while Leitch is producing along with Kelly McCormick, Antoine Fuqua (who was attached to direct at one point), and Kat Samick. While Leitch's recent Hobbs & Shaw was a big snooze (a highly profitable snooze, but a snooze nonetheless), his other directorial credits were immensely entertaining. He did uncredited director work on John Wick, he helmed the ass-kicking Charlize Theron movie Atomic Blonde, and, most impressive of all, he managed to make Deadpool, a character I normally can't stand, seem interesting with Deadpool 2.

With all that in mind, I have high hopes for Bullet Train. This sounds like it's going to be exactly the right kind of dumb, action-filled fun that Leitch can mold to his specifications. The only wild card here is writer Zak Olkewicz, who so far has only one feature film script to his name, the still-unreleased R.L. Stine horror flick Fear Street. I can't weigh in much on what Olkewicz will bring to the table, but I can hope for the best.

Leitch is currently attached to two other directing gigs: Undying Love, about a soldier who falls in love with a vampire; and The Division, a film about a bioterror attack on Black Friday. He's also a producer on Nobody, an upcoming action movie starring Better Call Saul's Bob Odenkirk (yes, really). That film was originally supposed to open this August, but was recently pushed to February 26, 2021.