Following up his five-film anthology Small Axe, Steve McQueen’s next narrative feature is Blitz, which will tell the story of Londoners during WWII in 1940 as they endure the German bombing campaign known as The Blitz, which lasted for eight months. With production set to kick off this fall, Deadline now reports that Apple has picked up the rights.
Apple also closed a major deal to acquire Joseph Kosinski’s forthcoming Formula One racing movie led by Brad Pitt. THR reports as part of the deal, the film will receive at least a 30-day theatrical window with a distributor partner to come on board, which seems like a no-brainer following the box office success of Kosinski’s Top Gun: Maverick. Scripted by Ehren Kruger, the Sir Lewis Hamilton-backed film will follow a driver who comes out of retirement to compete alongside a rookie driver and the titans of the sport. Speaking of Pitt, the new trailer for his next feature Bullet Train has also arrived.
While he hasn’t made a feature since 2016’s Triple 9, John Hillcoat is now readying a new project. Deadline reports he’ll be adapting J.G. Ballard’s 1988 novel Running Wild, as scripted by David Leland. The drama is set in an “exclusive gated community in the desert on the outskirts of Los Angeles where thirty-two adults, all brilliant, successful professionals, who have built their homes with pride, are brutally murdered, and their children abducted with not so much as a trace. A Forensic Psychologist is enlisted to delve into the circumstances of this heinous crime. As their investigation continues and they dig deeper into the events, they soon runs into conflict with their superiors as their suspicions fall on a very different kind of community – a religious cult, invoking memories of the Branch Davidians and their charismatic leader, David Koresh.”