Sony have been struggling heavily with the effects of the pandemic, partly due to the fact the studio is the only one of Hollywood’s ‘Big Five’ outfits that doesn’t own or operate an in-house streaming service, but you wouldn’t have noticed looking at the fanfare that greeted the first Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer when it finally dropped yesterday.
Having either sold off or seriously delayed the majority of this year’s titles, 2021 isn’t going to go down in the history books as one of Sony’s best ever. However, one action-packed blockbuster definitely worth keeping an eye on based on nothing but the high concept premise and talent involved is Bullet Train, which is penciled in to hit theaters on April 8th, 2022.
John Wick, Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2 and Hobbs & Shaw director David Leitch helms the star-studded adaptation of Kōtarō Isaka’s novel Maria Beetle, and the cast is absolutely stacked from top to bottom. Brad Pitt takes his first leading role in a straightforward actioner since 2005’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith, with the plot following a group of assassins on the titular mode of transport who soon discover that their individual assignments are all connected.
As well as Pitt, Bullet Train also features Joey King, Andrew Koji, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Hiroyuki Sanada, Zazie Beetz, Logan Lerman, Michael Shannon, Bad Bunny, Sandra Bullock and many more, with the first footage premiering exclusively at CinemaCon.
While it reportedly offered little more than Pitt’s character Ladybug and Bad Bunny scrapping at close quarters, it’s said to deliver Leitch’s signature method of intricately choreographed and highly stylized violence. Looking at the cast and logline alone, though, Bullet Train is a project well worth getting hyped for.