‘Matchbox’: ‘Extraction’ Director Sam Hargrave to Direct Mattel Movie!!

Mattel and Skydance are getting ready to start their engines with a live-action movie based on their Matchbox brand, and the companies have found the right filmmaker for the job. According to Deadline, Sam Hargrave has been hired to helm the story featuring the legendary brand of toy cars. Although no plot details regarding the upcoming project have been revealed, the fact that the companies selected a director known for creating intense action sequences leas to believe that the Matchbox movie will remind audiences what makes explosion-packed car chases so entertaining to watch on the screen.

Hargrave is known for his work in the Extraction movies, the Netflix blockbusters that follow Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) a former Australian SASR operator who leads a new life as a mercenary. The first movie, which also starred Randeep Hooda and David Harbour, was released over the course of the pandemic, eventually becoming a massive hit for the streaming platform. The action-packed adventure was successful enough that the studio decided to move forward with Extraction 2, which was released last summer. The action seen in both stories must have impressed the teams at Mattel and Skydance, who have decided to allow Hargrave to work with one of their best-selling brands.

The Matchbox brand was launched in 1953, when the company was created by Leslie Charles Smith, Rodney Smith and Jack Odell. The idea for producing the small vehicle replicas in such a big scale came after Odell‘s daughter was allowed to bring a toy to school, as long as it could fit inside a matchbox. Decades later, countless models have been produced and sold, consolidating the brand as one if the most coveted in the toy industry. Last summer, Barbie grabbed hold of the worldwide box office, making Mattel eager to produce more films and television series based on their extensive catalog of toy brands.

Who Will Write the Screenplay for ‘Matchbox’?

David Coggeshall and Jonathan Tropper have been hired to write the script for the upcoming film based on the Matchbox brand. Coggeshall recently wrote The Family Plan, a comedy that follows Jessica (Michelle Monaghan) and Dan Morgan (Mark Wahlberg) as they are forced to leave their lives behind when the man’s past as a government assassin is exposed. Tropper worked on The Adam Project, a Netflix production where the titular character portrayed by Ryan Reynolds travels to the past by accident and meets his younger self.