Variety is reporting that Dylan O’Brien (The Maze Runner films) is in talks to join Michael Keaton (Birdman, Spotlight) in CBS Films and Lionsgate‘s adaptation of Vince Flynn’s massive bestseller American Assassin, playing the title character Mitch Rapp. O’Brien recently sustained serious injuries on the set of 20th Century Fox’s The Maze Runner: The Death Cure, and is still recovering. While production on that threequel was recently delayed indefinitely to allow him more time to heal, O’Brien’s casting in American Assassin is a good sign that he will make a full recovery soon.
Acclaimed filmmaker Michael Cuesta (Kill The Messenger, “Homeland,” L.I.E.) will direct the thriller from a screenplay by Stephen Schiff (“The Americans,” “Ultimate Rush”). Lorenzo di Bonaventura (Transformers, Deepwater Horizon, Red) and Nick Wechsler (The Road, Magic Mike) are producing the film.
Cold War veteran Stan Hurley (Keaton) would be the most feared training officer in the CIA if more than a handful of people at the agency knew that he existed. As American Assassin begins, Deputy Director Irene Kennedy tasks Hurley with training Mitch Rapp (O’Brien), a black ops recruit devastated by the loss of his fiancée to a terrorist attack. As Rapp’s training progresses, the pair is dispatched on a joint mission with a lethal Turkish agent to stop a mysterious operative from starting World War III in the Middle East.
Published by Atria Books and in mass market paperback by Pocket Books, both imprints of Simon & Schuster, “American Assassin” is one of fourteen novels set in the world of counterterrorism operative Mitch Rapp. Every single one has been a New York Times bestseller, the three most recent entries have been number one New York Times bestsellers and the series has sold nearly twenty million copies to date.
American Assassin will be the latest release in the partnership between CBS Films and Lionsgate. The film will be co-financed by the two companies with CBS Films handling production and marketing and Lionsgate handling distribution.
