Brad Pitt to Team up With David Leitch Once Again
Deadpool 2 director David Leitch is planning to direct Bullet Train and has just attached Academy Award-winner Brad Pitt to star.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the movie will be based on the popular Japanese book by Kotaro Isaka, Maria Beetle, in which the plot revolves around a group of hitmen and assassins with conflicting motives on a train in Tokyo. Tonally, it is described as Speed meets Non-Stop. Pitt is set to play an American hitman named Ladybug.
Sony, the studio behind the project, wants to fast-track it as much as possible, and ideally, it would be shooting this fall. The contained environment of the story might help with that, as health restrictions would be easier to apply. The script is being written at the moment by Zak Olkewicz, with Leitch overseeing the writing process.
(Spoiler alert for Deadpool 2)
This will not be the first time Leitch and Pitt work together on a project. Leitch was the stunt double of Brad Pitt in Troy and Oceans’ 11, and fans of the Deadpool franchise might remember that, in the second installment, which Leitch directed, Brad Pitt popped up as a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo as The Vanisher (see picture above).
While no release date has been attached as of yet, if the plan of shooting this fall goes through, we might be getting this movie by the fall of next year. However, unless Sony wants to pull a big marketing stunt with it, I can’t see it playing well with The Batman, Spider-Man 3, or Fantastic Beasts 3. August is also full of action movies with The Suicide Squad and The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, so maybe early 2022? I’m just speculating at this point, but I honestly can’t see a clear release date. I can see them trying August, but they would have to market it very hard.
Antoine Fuqua, who originally developed the project, is producing, along with Leitch and Kelly McCormick through their 87 North production company, as well as Kat Samick. Executive producers are Ryosuke Saegusa and Yuma Terada, who represent Kotaro Isaka, the author of the Japanese book.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
