We haven’t seen an Edgar Wright movie since 2017 and, thanks to COVID-19, we won’t see another hitting theaters until April 2021 when Last Night in SoHo is released.
But Wright already has his next project lined up, and it’s a damned interesting one. Deadline reports that Wright will be tackling director duties for Universal’s movie adaptation of The Chain, the 2019 bestseller by Adrian McKinty. Jane Goldman (X-Men: First Class, Kingsman: The Secret Service) has been tapped to write the script. Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan of Working Title, Nira Park and Wright of Complete Fiction, and The Story Factory’s Shane Salerno will all be on producing duties.
The story of The Chain is one that seems tailor-made for Wright’s quirky action sensibilities. Just read the official synopsis of the novel:
It’s something parents do every morning: Rachel Klein drops her daughter at the bus stop and heads into her day. But a cell phone call from an unknown number changes everything: it’s a woman on the line, informing her that she has Kylie bound and gagged in her back seat, and the only way Rachel will see her again is to follow her instructions exactly: pay a ransom, and find another child to abduct. This is no ordinary kidnapping: the caller is a mother herself, whose son has been taken, and if Rachel doesn’t do as she’s told, the boy will die.
Rachel is now part of The Chain, an unending and ingenious scheme that turns victims into criminals — and is making someone else very rich in the process. The rules are simple, the moral challenges impossible; find the money fast, find your victim , and then commit a horrible act you’d have thought yourself incapable of just twenty-four hours ago. But what the masterminds behind The Chain know is that parents will do anything for their children. It turns out that kidnapping is only the beginning.
Since wrapping up his Cornetto trilogy (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The World’s End), Wright moved away from parody and action-comedy. Baby Driver was an adrenaline-fueled heist, fast-paced and packed full of action. The Chain appears to be planted firmly in the thriller category, a natural progression for Wright.
In the meantime, he’s one of the busier filmmakers at the moment. He’s recently lined up Set My Heart to Five, an adaptation of the upcoming novel by Simon Stephenson. Complete Fiction, his new LA-based production company, has already set a slate of film and series projects for Netflix. Stepping away from fiction, he’s working on a documentary about the band Sparks. And to round out his full plate, it was announced in February that a sequel to Baby Driver is in the works. But it appears The Chain will be high up on his priority list with the book already published and script already being worked on.
Wright’s next film, Last Night in SoHo, is now set to hit theaters on April 23, 2021.