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Movie Name: The Killer’s Game
Directed by: J. J. Perry
Starring: Dave Bautista, Ben Kingsley, Sofia Boutella, Terry Crews, Pom Klementieff, Scott Adkins, Drew McIntyre
Genre: Action, Comedy, Thriller
Running Time: 114 Minutes
Release Date: 13 September, 2024
Rating:
Production Companies: Mad Chance Productions, Endurance Media, Dogbone Entertainment, K. JAM Media
Budget: $ 30 million
A veteran assassin is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and authorizes a kill on himself. After ordering the kill, an army of former colleagues pounce and a new piece of information comes to light. Insanity ensues.
The Killer’s Game: Profile
The Killer’s Game is an upcoming American action comedy film directed by J. J. Perry and written by Rand Ravich and James Coyne, based on the 1997 novel of the same name by Jay Bonansinga.
The film is scheduled to be released in the United States on September 13, 2024.
A veteran assassin fends off a hit he placed on himself after learning the terminal medical diagnosis he received was incorrect.
Originally titled Godforsaken, Rand Ravich wrote his adaptation of Jay Bonansinga’s novel, The Killer’s Game, on spec in the mid-1990s and sold his draft to New Line Cinema in December 1995. Intermedia would produce the film. Rupert Wainwright was attached to direct, while Wesley Snipes was courted to star by July 2002. Production was expected to begin during the Fall. A month later, talks began with Mike van Diem to direct. New Line offered the film to a wide array of directors, including John Woo, Wolfgang Petersen, Alex Proyas, and Renny Harlin, but failed to attract any to sign on. In August 2004, the film transitioned to Paramount Pictures; Intermedia and Andrew Lazar were attached to produce while Simon Kinberg was handling rewrites. Michael Keaton was at point attached to star, while Simon Crane and Pitof were considered to direct. Development on the project came to a standstill in 2006 when Intermedia closed down.
By December 2015, Broad Green Pictures was in talks to acquire the rights to The Killer’s Game. Come February 2018, STX Films took over the film; hiring D.J. Caruso to direct and Jason Statham in the lead role. By April of the next year, Statham exited the film and was replaced by Dave Bautista. Ice Cube joined the cast in June 2019. In September, Morena Baccarin and Kris Wu joined the cast. Caruso and Peter Landesman were rewriting the script ahead of a planned production start of December 2, 2019 in the Dominican Republic.
Development on the film quietly halted again until May 2023 when the distribution rights shifted to Lionsgate; J.J. Perry was to direct, and James Coyne was to rewrite the script. The cast retained Bautista and Ice Cube and added Sofia Boutella and Ben Kingsley. In July, Pom Klementieff, Scott Adkins, Drew McIntyre and Marko Zaror were among new additions to the cast. In March 2024, it was announced Terry Crews was to star, having replaced Cube.
Production began in July 2023 in Budapest, having been granted an interim agreement waiver to proceed with filming amid the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Final writing credits were submitted in November 2023; screenplay credit was given to Ravich and Coyne and the offscreen additional literary material credit was attributed to Caruso, Nick Cassavetes, John Joseph Connolly, Michael Dowse, Cory Goodman, Kinberg, Landesman, Brian Rudnick, and Kurt Wimmer.
Movie Trailer:
Movie Review:
“The Killer’s Game” begins with an atypical boy-meets-girl scenario. The high-end assassin Joe Flood, played by the bullet-headed Dave Bautista, spies his future love, the modern dancer Maize (Sofia Boutella), as he interrupts one of her performances in an ornate hall in Budapest. The interruption is a violent one: He shoots one of the spectators, and while Joe has the discretion to use a silencer, his prey’s bodyguards get a little loud. In the ensuing melee, Joe winds up in possession of Maize’s cellphone.
On returning it, Maize offers Joe a dinner for his troubles. Here we learn that Joe, while brazen and prolific in the art of homicide, is a little awkward with the ladies. As he and Maize become a match, there’s trouble in paradise.
Joe is plagued by headaches, and on learning that he has an incurable condition, he asks his own people — the colorful, loosely affiliated union of assassins — to take him out. (He receives his assignments, and his money, from his wise old handler, who is played by Ben Kingsley.)
J.J. Perry (“Day Shift”), a stunt performer and coordinator who’s worked on the “John Wick” franchise, directs this rom-com action movie, whose conceits borrow from the “Wick” franchise rather heavily.
While those conceits work well enough in movies starring Keanu Reeves, here they fall flat. The action choreography is better than passable, although Perry adds grindhouse-movie levels of gore and dismemberment in a dubious effort to up the thrill quotient.
