‘Hobbs & Shaw’ Helmer David Leitch Boards Sony’s ‘Bullet Train’

David Leitch, who helmed Deadpool 2 and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, will direct Bullet Train, the Sony Pictures action movie based on the Japanese novel Maria Beetle by Kotaro Isaka. Zak Olkewicz wrote the script.

Here’s the logline of the novel. Five assassins find themselves on a fast moving bullet train from Tokyo to Morioka with only a few stops in between. They discover their missions are not unrelated to each other. The question becomes who will make it off the train alive and what awaits them at the terminal station?

Antoine Fuqua developed the project originally with Fuqua Films’ Kat Samick and they are producing along with Leitch and Kelly McCormick (Atomic Blonde) through their company 87North. Ryosuke Saegusa and Yuma Terada of CTB Inc are exec producers and rep Isaka and the IP.

Leitch will oversee a rewrite by Olkewicz to get the film ready to shoot.

Brittany Morrissey is the executive overseeing the project for Sony Pictures.

Leitch is repped by WME and Gang, Tyre; Olkewitz is with 3 Arts and Felker Toczek.

Harvill Secker will publish the novel Bullet Train in English next year.