Lionsgate has secured the worldwide rights to The Killer’s Game, an action comedy package that has Dave Bautista onboard to star. JJ Perry (Day Shift) will direct based on Jay Bonansinga‘s novel of the same name. The studio plans to launch sales at the Cannes Film Festival this week.
The Killer’s Game follows veteran assassin Joe Flood, who is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and authorizes a kill on himself to avoid the pain that is destined to follow. But after ordering the kill, he discovers that he was misdiagnosed, and must then fend off the army of former colleagues trying to kill him.
Rand Ravich and Simon Kinberg, best known for their work on the X-Men series, have written the script, though James Coyne handled recent rewrites. Mad Chance’s Andrew Lazar will produce alongside Steve Richards for Endurance Media, which is financing the project.
Lazar said in a statement: “We are so thrilled to be making The Killer’s Game with Lionsgate and Endurance. We have searched far and wide and we finally found the perfect Joe Flood in Dave Bautista, who balances compelling action and incredible comic timing better than anyone else.
And with JJ Perry at the helm, we know this film will deliver the kind of wholly original and unique action that global audiences crave.”
Endurance Media’s Richards added: “Lionsgate is the perfect home for this project. They have consistently proven their ability to connect action audiences with the best films in the genre. We are believers that The Killer’s Game is the perfect mix of action and comedy, and right now, there’s no one better at threading that needle than Dave Bautista.”
Bautista has had a great last six months, starring in Rian Johnson‘s Netflix hit Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, M. Night Shyamalan‘s thriller Knock At The Cabin, and can currently be seen in cinemas in the acclaimed Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
Later this year, he’ll reprise his role as Glossu Rabban Harkonnen in Denis Villeneuve‘s Dune: Part Two.
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