Silent Night: John Woo’s first American movie in twenty years lands 2023 release

Last Updated on October 2, 2023

Believe it or not, but it’s been twenty years since the release of John Woo’s last American movie; That would be Paycheck starring Ben Affleck for those keeping track. The iconic director is finally back with Silent Night, an action-thriller devoid of dialogue that stars Joel Kinnaman. Lionsgate announced today that they will release Silent Night on December 1, 2023.

“From legendary director John Woo and the producer of John Wick comes the gritty revenge tale of a tormented father (Joel Kinnaman) who witnesses his young son die when caught in a gang’s crossfire on Christmas Eve,” reads the official synopsis. “While recovering from a wound that costs him his voice, Kinnaman makes vengeance his life’s mission and embarks on a punishing training regimen in order to avenge his son’s death. Full of Woo’s signature style, Silent Night redefines the action genre with visceral thrill-a-minute storytelling.“

John Woo directed Silent Night from a script by Robert Archer Lynn. In addition to Joel Kinnaman, the film also stars Scott Mescudi, Harold Torres, and Catalina Sandino Moreno.

A dialogue-free action movie certainly sounds interesting, and producer Erica Lee told Collider earlier this year that her reaction to the script was, “This is either going to be a genius move or a disaster, there’s no in between.” I’ve got faith in John Woo. The director commented on the project while speaking with Vulture this summer.

“Very interesting movie,” Woo said. “The whole movie is without dialogue. It allowed me to use visuals to tell the story, to tell how the character feels. We are using music instead of language. And the movie is all about sight and sound. The budget was a little tight, and the schedule was tight, but it made me change my working style. Usually, for a big movie, a studio movie, we shoot a lot of coverage, then leave it to the cutting room. But in this movie, I tried to combine things without doing any coverage shots. I had to force myself to use a new kind of technique. Some scenes were about two or three pages, but I did it all in one shot.” Now that a release date has been nailed down, we should hopefully get to see the first trailer for Silent Night before too long.