Daniel Espinosa has quietly been one of the most interesting filmmakers around since his stylish debut, the crime flick Snabba Cash. Since then he’s bounced around with blockbusters such as Safe House, political thrillers including Child 44, and the (underrated) alien horror Life. While his upcoming film is Sony’s Spider-Man spinoff Morbius, after that Espinosa will be getting very political once more by bringing the story of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi to the screen.
Deadline reports Espinosa is developing-to-direct The Execution, a drama on the tragic murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. In October 2018 Khashoggi, a harsh critic of Saudi prince Mohammad bin Salman, walked into the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul and never came out. He had been there to get a marriage license; but instead he was butchered by members of the Saudi government. His murder caused a political firestorm around the world, with most countries condemning the Saudis for their action. Meanwhile, here in the U.S. we had an administration who seemed to be doing everything possible not to offend their friends in the Saudi government.
The film will be written by Petter Skavlan, best known for the Oscar-nominated film Kon-Tiki. There are a lot of angles to take on the Khashoggi killing and it’ll be interesting to see where this one goes. In terms of the political fallout one could probably make a dozen movies, or a docuseries on the subject.
Next up for Espinosa is Sony’s Morbius, which opens March 19th 2021.
