What a time to be a Keanu Reeves fan, eh? Just last week, we brought you news that the busier-than-ever actor, rocker, and all-round good egg is eyeing James Wan's The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil remake, and now, just five days later, Deadline is reporting that Reeves has just landed himself another eye-catching assignment. Per the trade, Reeves has come aboard to replace Reacher star Alan Ritchson in Maelstrom, a new Netflix-bound action thriller from Carry-On filmmaker Jaume Collet-Serra.
Based on an idea that's been floating around Hollywood since the late Gregory Fitzpatrick's initial draft first surfaced in 1993, Maelstrom — whose current script hails from How To Rob A Bank writer Mark Bianculli — is, in essence, 'Die Hard in a hurricane'. As Deadline shares, the movie follows as "a Federal Marshal assigned to protect the fiancée of an arms dealer turned witness must defend her through one brutal night as a hurricane cuts off communication, strands them without reinforcements, and unleashes the dealer’s men on their safe house." Way back when, this high concept actioner's spec script was bought with a Steven Seagal, Sylvester Stallone, or Clint Eastwood in mind to star, but after being resurrected in recent months as a package with above-mentioned man mountain Alan Ritchson attached, the Jack Reacher actor's unexplained exit from the project has paved the way for Keanu to get back in action... literally.
Maelstrom is the latest in an increasingly buzzy — and long — list of projects occupying Keanu Reeves' horizon right now, joining the likes of pirate-and-shark-fighting time loop actioner Shiver, Sonic The Hedgehog 4, Ruben Östlund's The Entertainment System Is Down, and an as-yet-untitled mystery LEGO movie from Josh Cooley and Patty Jenkins in the Bill & Ted actor's pipeline. And as for Collet-Serra, who followed up Taron Egerton airport thriller Carry-On with the effectively chilling The Woman In The Yard last year, this comes as post-production finishes up on another genre joint with roots in 1993 — the Spaniard's hotly anticipated Cliffhanger remake. Here's hoping this dynamic director-star duo successfully navigate the maelstrom of all their upcoming movies to get to, well, Maelstrom. All good things to those who wait, right?