Back in January, it was announced that JOHN WICK co-director David Leitch, who has gone on to helm ATOMIC BLONDE, DEADPOOL 2, and this weekend's FAST & FURIOUS PRESENTS: HOBBS & SHAW while Chad Stahelski has stuck with the JOHN WICK sequels, was teaming with DEAD SNOW and HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS filmmaker Tommy Wirkola for an adaptation of the vampire graphic novel UNDYING LOVE.
Created by Tomm Coker and Daniel Freedman, UNDYING LOVE tells the story of
an ex-soldier who falls in love with a vampire, but in order to be with her he must take on her creator, who is protected by an army of monsters in the Hong Kong underworld.
Leitch will be directing the film from a screenplay written by Wirkola, and during an interview with Collider he mentioned that
Tommy Wirkola has gotten through the first draft, who is a really good friend and I think a really good writer and perfect for it, so we’re working our way through that material."
Another project Leitch has in the works is the post-apocalyptic thriller THE DIVISION, based on the Ubisoft video game. That one is set up at Netflix and has Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Chastain attached to star.
The story of THE DIVISION is set in
the near future, where a pandemic virus is spread via paper money on Black Friday, decimating the city of New York and killing millions. By Christmas, what’s left of society has descended into chaos. A group of civilians, trained to operate in catastrophic times, are activated in an attempt to save who and what remains.
Leitch provided a status update on THE DIVISION, saying that
we’re awaiting a script on it, and there’s a lot of people involved with that one, creative producers and actors, who have input on the script and then they have schedules, so we’ll see how that’s all going. For things to come together when these attachments happen it’s usually a miracle in a sense. But I think there is a motivation from Netflix and from Jake and Jessica and myself to make it happen. And as the material comes together, is it the movie we all want to make and are excited about? And hopefully it is. We all loved the pitch and we all loved that world."
Rafe Judkins is the writer working on that script everyone is waiting to take a look at.
Since both of these projects are in the scripting stage, it's not clear which one might move forward first. I'm guessing the involvement of Netflix, Gyllenhaal, and Chastain might push THE DIVISION into the lead. I've never played that game, so in basic description it's UNDYING LOVE that sounds more appealing to me.
We'll keep you updated on these projects as development continues.