Talk about a lateral move. After spending years alongside Tom Cruise in the Mission: Impossible franchise, Christopher McQuarrie is moving on to something entirely different. However, he’ll be working with perhaps the only other actor in the world who measures up as a classic movie star in the same mold: Denzel Washington.
It’s being reported by THR that McQuarrie will direct Washington in an original crime thriller for Amazon MGM Studios and United Artists. The untitled film already has a release date, October 1st 2027, and will have a script by Scott Barkan and Gregg Zehentner. Previously, the project was titled The Frame, and will begin filming in November.
Washington will star as a former police detective serving a life sentence, until he’s granted compassionate release following a terminal brain cancer diagnosis. With only six months to live, he returns home with the hopes of reconnecting with his estranged daughter and the grandson he never knew, but finds that his criminal past won’t be left behind.
This sounds right in Washington’s wheelhouse, as he’s starred in many a dramatic crime thriller, including last year’s underrated Highest 2 Lowest. It’s the kind of film that McQuarrie hasn’t done in a very long time, not since The Way of the Gun in 2000.
