As one of the projects affected by Dylan O’Brien’s on-set injury, one which occurred while filming on YA sequel The Maze Runner: The Death Cure, Michael Cuesta’s geopolitical thriller, American Assassin has been a long time coming. Thankfully, that prolonged wait will come to an end on September 15th, 2017.
First picked up by Lionsgate six whole years ago, the big-screen adaptation of Vince Flynn’s novel series slowly began to make headway after casting Spider-Man: Homecoming‘s Michael Keaton, O’Brien and Taylor Kitsch, who climbed on board as a deeply enigmatic CIA operative hell-bent on starting World War III in the Middle East. Standing in his way is Mitch Rapp (O’Brien), a best-in-class Black Ops recruit who is trained under the watchful eye of a Cold War veteran (Keaton) and the CIA Deputy Director, Irene Kennedy (Sanaa Lathan).
Also starring Shiva Negar as a Turkish agent and close ally to Mitch Rapp, American Assassin has been pitched as a CIA thriller with real bite, and considering that Vince Flynn’s literary saga spans 15 novels – so far, at least – there’s plenty of source material to mine should Lionsgate want to foster a newfound action franchise. With Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Nick Wechsler attached to produce, we understand Michael Cuesta will be directing from a script by Stephen Schiff.
Here’s the logline.
The pair is enlisted by CIA Deputy Director Irene Kennedy (Sanaa Lathan) to investigate a wave of apparently random attacks on military and civilian targets. Together the three discover a pattern in the violence leading them to a joint mission with a lethal Turkish agent (Shiva Negar) to stop a mysterious operative (Taylor Kitsch) intent on starting a world war in the Middle East.
The target has been set. American Assassin finally shoots for theaters on September 15th, but are you excited to see Vince Flynn’s espionage thriller make the leap from page to screen? Do let us know.
