Keanu Reeves is reportedly taking over from Alan Ritchson in Maelstrom, Netflix’s action thriller from Carry-On director Jaume Collet-Serra.
The film has an unusually long journey behind it. Greg Fitzpatrick’s screenplay sold to Warner Bros. in 1993, when it was described as a Die Hard-style thriller set during a hurricane. Its original premise followed a federal agent protecting a woman whose powerful criminal husband wanted to prevent her from testifying against him.
Netflix is now reviving the project with producer Jeff Robinov, who was an agent when the original screenplay sold. Mark Bianculli, who also worked with Collet-Serra on the new Cliffhanger, has revised the script.
The casting brings Reeves back to the kind of high-pressure action territory familiar to John Wick viewers, this time with a natural disaster complicating the pursuit.
