Michael Bay WIll Direct 'Speed'-Like Action Movie 'Ambulance' Starring Jake Gyllenhaal
Jake Gyllenhaal wants in on some Bayhem so he's in talks to star in Ambulance, the latest from Michael Bay. The script for the film, penned by Chris Fedak, has actually been kicking around for a while. At one point, Big Bad Wolves directors Navot Papushado & Aharon Keshales were attached to helm. But now, Bay has ahold of it. While the latest news about Gyllenhaal possibly joining the cast says that the plot is under wraps, previous reports reveal that Fedak's script is a remake of the 2005 Danish film Ambulancen, which followed two brothers who use an ambulance as their getaway vehicle following a robbery.
Deadline has the scoop about Jake Gyllenhaal being in talks to join Michael Bay's Ambulance. Their report says the "film is the vein of the great action thrillers of the '90s like Speed and Bay's Bad Boys," but adds that there are no plot details. But that's not exactly true. Back in 2017, when it was announced that Navot Papushado & Aharon Keshales were directing the project, Deadline actually had this synopsis:
A vet just back from Afghanistan is drawn by his brother into a bank robbery in downtown Los Angeles. When the robbery goes horribly wrong, the brothers take hostages and hijack an ambulance. As the situation escalates, old wounds reopen in the relationship between the brothers as they fight to survive what seems like an impossible situation.
They also added that the script was a remake of the 2005 Danish film Ambulancen in which two brothers commit a robbery to pay for an operation for their dying mother. When they're unable to use their original getaway car, the brothers hijack an ambulance and speed away – before realizing that a dying heart transplant patient and a hospital intern are both in the back of the vehicle. The brothers can either turn around to return the patient to the hospital and risk getting caught or keep on speeding away to safety.
This definitely sounds ripe for some Bayhem – I can already picture the speeding ambulance smashing through shit in slow-motion while Bay's camera spins all over the place. Gyllenhaal is a wonderful actor, and he's always more interesting when he's playing someone unhinged. So I'm imagining he's playing one of the brothers in this scenario and the movie will require him to yell a lot as he drives the ambulance all over town.
As for Bay, well...he has his moments. He can be quite toxic at times, and some of his films – like the recent Netflix title 6 Underground – are often downright awful. But every once in a while he delivers and creates something special – see The Rock or Pain and Gain, for example. Will Ambulance fall into the latter category? We can only hope. There's no studio attached to the pic yet, but Universal seems interested.