Update: Production has now begun (via Instagram/Collider). See more info below.
As we wait and see if Adam Wingard’s sequel Face/Off 2 will actually get made, Hong Kong master John Woo is getting back in the director’s chair to show the world how action filmmaking is done. In what might be his most interesting and perhaps ambitious conceit yet, his next film will not feature a single word of dialogue.
Deadline reports Woo is set to direct Silent Night, a U.S. production that will star Joel Kinnaman as a father who must venture into the underworld to avenge his young son’s death. Backed by John Wick’s Basil Iwanyk, Erica Lee, Christian Mercuri, and Lori Tilkin as well as Capstone’s Ruzanna Kegeyan and Joe Gatta, there are no additional plot details, but from the sounds of it, there may not be many more to reveal in what looks to be an all-out action extravaganza.
Woo’s last film was the entertaining actioner Manhunt in 2017. C.J. Prince said in our TIFF review, “It’s pure, maximalist filmmaking in the hands of a master who can put it all out there within the right emotional context to prevent it all from falling apart. It’s also Woo’s most self-reflexive work to date, with references to most of his filmography peppered throughout (the film’s best moment might be when, in the middle of a scene, Woo inserts a foreshadowing shot of a pigeon coop). This is a different John Woo than we’re used to: someone who’s more playful, more self-aware, and, in some ways, more cinematic. Let’s hope this version is here to stay.”