Dave Bautista may not be the branding juggernaut fellow wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne Johnson is, but the former WWE superstar has certainly chosen some interesting roles for the image he has. He had played a soft-spoken replicant in Blade Runner 2049, a lovable goofy warrior in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, and he recently can be seen in the trailer for Knock at the Cabin as a deeply conflicted, disturbed stranger.
Bautista does not shy away from the action genre, though, and his next project, according to Deadline, comes from writer and director Drew Pearce, and is a bouncer action thriller called Cooler. Bautista will be playing a South Beach bouncer named Ray Sagona. A safe containing drugs is stolen from his club, and Ray is blackmailed into finding it before the Miami PD narcotics bureau comes to retrieve it on a Sunday night. Ray is on the path to redemption, which includes getting his family back, and this whole situation pits his troublesome past and peaceful future together at dangerous odds. Ray journeys on a 36-hour action-filled odyssey to retrieve the stolen safe and try to survive for his family.
Writer Pearce is known for films like another Marvel hot property with Iron Man 3, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, and Fast and Furious presents: Hobbs & Shaw. Pearce made his directing debut with the quirky action film Hotel Artemis, in which he had directed Bautista. Pearce also wrote and directed the Marvel One-Shot film All Hail the King, starring Ben Kingsley.
Pearce is happy to work with Bautista again, saying, “Dave is one of the most soulful and talented collaborators I’ve been lucky enough to work with — the chance to build an iconic character with him and make the kind of long-dark-night-of-the-soul thriller that I’ve always loved, is too good to be true. The fact that we get to do it all in Miami, guided by the epic cultural knowledge of Drake and Future The Prince, is frankly a mindblower. And there’s nobody more perfect to be our partner than Infrared, whose creative ambitions aligned perfectly with what we want this movie to be.”