Jaume Collet-Serra to direct Kate Warne with Emily Blunt expected to star as the pioneering detective

Last Updated on November 3, 2023

Deadline reports that Jaume Collet-Serra has signed on to direct Kate Warne for Amazon Studios and Seven Bucks Productions. Emily Blunt will produce through her Ledburry Productions banner and is also expected to star as Kate Warne, the American law enforcement officer known as the first female detective in the United States.

Emily Blunt won’t be able to finalize her deal to star in Kate Warne until the SAG-AFTRA strike concludes, but once it does, those conversations can resume. The project is described as an action thriller built around Warne, a “real-life Sherlock Holmes” figure who was the first female detective at the Pinkerton National Detective Agency and “paved the way for future woman in law enforcement and forever changed how detective work was done.“

This will be somewhat of a reunion as Jaume Collet-Serra previously directed Jungle Cruise, in which Emily Blunt starred alongside Dwayne Johnson. Melissa Stack penned the script from a previous draft by Gustin Nash.

When Kate Warne was just 23, she walked into the Pinkerton Detective Agency and asked for a job as a detective. They were initially reluctant to hire her, but Warne convinced them that her undercover skills would be unique and helpful. She quickly proved her worth; in 1861, Warne helped uncover the Baltimore Plot against President-elect Abraham Lincoln, which would have seen him assassinated before he could take office.

Emily Blunt will next be seen in Pain Hustlers, a crime drama in which she stars as Liza Drake, a high-school dropout who lands a job with a failing pharmaceutical start-up in a yellowing strip mall in Central Florida, where she soon finds herself at the center of a criminal conspiracy with deadly consequences. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last month and will be released in select theaters on October 20th before being released by Netflix on October 27th. You can check out a review from our own Chris Bumbray right here.