In an exclusive from Deadline, John Woo is set to make his American action movie return with Silent Night starring The Suicide Squad actor Joel Kinnaman. This time the hook is telling a loud action story without a single word of dialogue.
Sources close to Deadline say the story is as simple as a father going to the underworld to avenge his young son’s death. John Wick’s Basil Iwanyk, Erica Lee, Christian Mercuri, and Lori Tilkin are producing and Capstone’s Ruzanna Kegeyan is overseeing the project with Joe Gatta. Kinnaman is the only star attached at this time, but casting is currently underway for the film. Kinnaman himself is no stranger to the action genre with films like the Suicide Squad movies, Safe House, and the Robocop remake under his belt.
Woo got his start in Chinese cinema in the 1970s with films such as The Young Dragons, The Dragon Tamers, and The Hand of Death. He later became a household name in America in the 1990s, directing action films like Hard Target, Broken Arrow, the Nicholas Cage and John Travolta-starring Face/Off, and the Tom Cruise-led Mission Impossible 2. After a decade of making American action films, he would return to the Chinese market with a mixture of action and war films such as his most recently released 2017 film Manhunt. His last American action film was 2003’s Paycheck and, while there is no other news or a release date at this time, action fans everywhere should get excited for Woo’s return to American cinemas.
Action films have never left American pop culture, but ever since films like Taken, these types of movies have gotten an energetic resurgence. The John Wick franchise, Nobody, and Extraction are some of the finer examples of the genre in recent memory. Given Woo’s unique eye for visual storytelling, it will be interesting to see what a modern revenge-style action movie from him. With the underworld involved and there being no dialogue, Silent Night sounds like it is going to be one of the more compelling action offerings to look forward to in the future. Stay tuned to Collider for more as this project moves forward.
via Collider