'Lockdown': Doug Liman's Pandemic Heist Film Heads To HBO Max
Director Doug Liman's star-studded pandemic heist film is going straight to streaming.
The worldwide rights to Lockdown, Liman's new mixture of heist film and romantic comedy, has been acquired by Warner Bros. Pictures, which has a plan to release the film on HBO in early 2021. Read on for a refresher of the plot and all of the A-list talent who appear in this this movie.
Anne Hathaway (or as Key and Peele would refer to her, "Annie Hathaways") and Chiwetel Ejiofor (Doctor Strange, Triple 9) are playing the leads in this new movie. (Sorry, Key and Peele don't have a fun nickname for Ejiofor.) The story is set against the backdrop of COVID-19 and stars Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor as a sparring married couple who call a truce to attempt a high-risk, high-stakes jewelry heist at Harrod's, the world's most exclusive department store.
The rest of the cast is downright fantastic: Ben Stiller (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Tropic Thunder), Lily James (Rebecca, Baby Driver), Stephen Merchant (Hello Ladies, Logan), Lucy Boynton (Sing Street, Bohemian Rhapsody), Mindy Kaling (The Office, Ocean's Eight), Ben Kingsley (Sexy Beast, Iron Man 3), and Dulé Hill (Psych). Unfortunately, we don't know which roles the rest of these actors will be playing.
Liman, who previously directed films like Edge of Tomorrow, Go, and The Bourne Identity, is behind the camera, returning to territory that sounds vaguely similar to what he did with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Steven Knight, who wrote Eastern Promises, Locke, and the absolutely deranged Matthew McConaughey/Anne Hathaway noir film Serenity, wrote the script. AGC Studios is financing the movie, and it was produced by PJ van Sandwijk (American Dharma, Citizen K), Alison Winter, who has worked with Liman on several film and streaming productions over the past few years, and Michael Lesslie, who wrote the 2016 movie adaptation of Assassin's Creed. Liman and Knight served as executive producers.
Production started back in September and seems to have already wrapped. There's no official release date in place yet, and no word if this might also get a theatrical release at the same time as it hits HBO Max. That's how WB is handling the release of the giant superhero film Wonder Woman 1984, which will be released this Christmas, but this film may work better as solely an in-home release because it specifically takes place during the coronavirus pandemic.