Jason Statham and Guy Ritchie to Rejoin for Spy Thriller 'Five Eyes'
Guy Ritchie and Jason Statham are getting back together for another project.
The Sherlock Holmes director and The Transporter action star will be working on a new spy thriller Five Eyes, in which Statham will star in and Ritchie will direct. Deadline Hollywood first reported the news and, much like Ritchie’s last film The Gentleman, will be financed by Miramax and distributed by STX Films.
In this latest feature, Statham an MI6 agent recruited by the titular global intelligence alliance to help track down and prevent the sale of a new weapons technology that will threaten the world. And judging from that simple premise, it sounds like it will be right up Ritchie’s alley as films like The Man From UNCLE and The Gentleman have shown he can do action packed spy adventures with his trademark wit and style thrown in there to make it unique.
This marks the fifth team up between the director and Statham having worked together on Ritchie’s directorial debut Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels in 1998, his follow up Snatch in 2000 and 2005’s Revolver. Since those two films, both men have gone on to bigger things. Statham has become wildly popular action hero with The Transporter franchise, Hobbs and Shaw, and The Meg among many other hits. After a few rocky years, Ritchie has bounced back with hits like Sherlock Holmes, the billion dollar grossing live action Aladdin and The Gentleman’s solid performance on a modest budget. Before Five Eyes, fans will get to see Statham and Ritchie team up again for the action thriller Cash Truck. That movie is scheduled for January 15, 2021 (as of now).
It’s clear that Ritchie sees Statham as a sort of muse for him in the same vein as Scorsese/DiCaprio, Spielberg/Hanks and other director star collaborations. They bring out the best in each other and seeing not one but two future projects teaming these two should be enticing to fans of Lock, Stock and Snatch, especially if it’s in the same vein as those movies.
Shooting on Five Eyes is expected to start in October around Europe and a potential release date of late 2021 or early 2022 is certainly in the realm of possibility.