Good news for exhibition as Lionsgate is delivering two big releases this fall: The Dave Bautista action pic The Killer’s Game on Sept. 13 and the Mel Gibson directed Mark Wahlberg movie Flight Risk for Oct. 18. Again, we can’t be without film product in a marketplace that’s starving for volume.
Meanwhile the Gerard Butler sequel Den of Thieves: Pantera will hit cinemas on Jan. 10, 2025; that title arriving to Lionsgate through its eOne acquistion.
The JJ Perry directed The Killer’s Game, based on the book by Jay R. Bonansinga and adapted by Rand Ravich and James Coyne, follows a tip hitman, Joe Flood (Bautista) who is diagnosed with a terminal illness. He opts to take matters into his own hands – by taking a hit out on himself. But when the very hitmen he hired also target his ex-girlfriend (Sofia Boutella), he must fend off an army of assassin colleagues and win back the love of his life before it’s too late. Andrew Lazar, Steve Richards and Kia Jam produce. EPs are Jonathan Meisner, Dave Bautista, Chris Milburn, Thane Watkins, Peter E. Strauss, Scott Lambert, Dean Altit and Adam Fields. Terry Crews, Scott Adkins, Pom Klementieff, and Ben Kingsley also star.
Lionsgate showed off this trailer at CinemaCon to great laughs. The pic is opening against wide entries Universal/Blumehouse’s Speak No Evil and Blue Fox’s Autumn and the Black Jaguar.
Flight Risk written by Jared Rosenberg and produced by Gibson, John Davis, John Fox and Bruce Davey follows a pilot (Wahlberg) who is transporting an Air Marshal (Michelle Dockery) accompanying a fugitive (Topher Grace) to trial. As they cross the Alaskan wilderness, tensions soar and trust is tested, as not everyone on board is who they seem.
Flight Risk is the only wide release on Oct. 13.
Christian Gudegast’s Den of Thieves: Pantera sees Butler and O’Shea Jackson Jr. (Straight Out of Compton, Godzilla: King of the Monsters) return in the sequel to 2018’s action-heist hit Den of Thieves. Big Nick (Butler) is back on the hunt in Europe and closing in on Donnie (Jackson), who is embroiled in the treacherous and unpredictable world of diamond thieves and the infamous Panther mafia, as they plot a massive heist of the world’s largest diamond exchange. Producers are Tucker Tooley, Butler, Alan Siegel and Mark Canton. EPs are Greg Renker, Gregoire Gensollen, Christian Parent, Marc Schaberg, Zev Foreman, Jen Gorton, Christian Gudegast, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Meadow Williams, Swen Temmel, Philip Waley and Glenn Feig.
Den of Thieves: Pantera joins Warner Bros.’ sci-fi pic Companion as the sole wide entries on Jan. 10.