John Woo Is Remaking One Of His ’80s Action Classics For Peacock

A streaming service is nothing without new premium films and shows to draw in subscribers. While Netflix falters, NBCUniversal is investing more in original feature films going directly to Peacock. Today, the company announced three films coming to the streamer in 2023 – including one from action legend John Woo.

Woo will direct a reimagining of his 1989 film, The Killer. The original starred Chow Yun-fat as the eponymous hitman Ah Jong. During one job, he accidentally hurts a nightclub singer by shooting a gun near her. Ah Jong was going to retire following that job, but his guilt forces him to take another job to get the money for the singer’s eye surgery. Danny Lee plays Li Ying, a detective obsessed with Ah Jong, while Sally Yeh is Jennie, the nightclub singer.

The Killer wasn’t Woo’s first film in the “heroic bloodshed” drama, with dudes brooding and shooting everywhere – that honor falls to 1986’s A Better Tomorrow. The Killer was the first use of doves by Woo, however, something that would become a signature feature of his later films, including 1992’s Hard Boiled.

It’s unclear if this new remake of The Killer is related to the project announced way back in 2018. That film was also going to be directed by Woo, with Black Panther and Us actress Lupita Nyong’o starring in the new lead role. The synopsis given by NBCUniversal at the time had the same premise as the original film, but with a female assassin protecting a young woman blinded by an earlier job.

The Killer is planned for release in 2023 on Peacock. It will mark Woo’s first American production since Paycheck back in 2003. There was a film previously announced, the no-dialogue action film Silent Night, but that film has no current release window.

The second Peacock project is Shooting Stars, a collaboration with LeBron James and Maverick Carter’s SpringHill Company. The film will dramatize LeBron’s early years as a high-school basketball player. The third movie is Praise This, a new project from Girls Trip producer Will Packer. This film will star actress Chloe Bailey as “the newest member of a community’s church choir who pushes her members in a hipper musical direction.”

Author: Mike Williams. [Source Link (*), IGN All]

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