Michael B. Jordan’s upcoming assassin film The Silver Bear has found a writer and director in The First Purge’s Gerard McMurray. Jordan has risen through the ranks of Hollywood over the last several years to the point where he is now a bonafide star. He got his big break working with Ryan Coogler, with Fruitvale Station marking their first collaboration in 2013. The duo have gone on to reinvent the Rocky franchise through Creed and most recently teamed up for Black Panther, where Jordan’s Erik Killmonger was a standout.
Jordan’s stardom is beginning to expand beyond just his work with Coogler, even though they’re set to work together again on a new project tentatively titled Wrong Answer. Jordan experienced great success with Creed II both critically and financially, and he’s lining up more action heavy roles in the future. He previously signed on to star in Without Remorse, a movie based on the John Clancy character John Clark. One of the other projects he recently became attached to was The Silver Bear, another book adaptation that centers around a highly skilled assassin named Columbus. It has been several months since this announcement was made, and now the project has taken a massive step forward.
Deadline shared the news that Legendary has hired The First Purge’s Gerard McMurray to write and direct The Silver Bear. This is a reunion for McMurray and Jordan, as McMurray served as a producer on Fruitvale Station. He made his directorial debut with Netflix’s Burning Sands and is also set to direct an episode of Jordan Peele’s The Twilight Zone reboot. There is no timetable yet for when production will begin on The Silver Bear.
The Derek Haas novels have been praised for their character work and thriller genre aspects to the story. The Silver Bear is just the first chapter of a trilogy of books Haas wrote that gives Columbus his most personal target yet, a young congressman and rising figure in the Democratic Party who is also his father. Columbus’ story continues from there as he has to take on crime lords, prostitution rings, drug dealers, and much more. Clearly, there is a basis here for Lionsgate, Jordan, and McMurray to turn The Silver Bear into an exciting project, and the studio has already shown a great ability to handle assassin franchises with what they’ve done with John Wick.
There is no guarantee that The Silver Bear can be the next assassin franchise Lionsgate is likely looking for, but the combination of McMurray and Jordan immediately makes it a project to keep an eye on. One of the highlights of The First Purge was the action that McMurray was able to craft and Jordan’s proven his ability as an action star on multiple occasions before. As long as they also make sure that the character and story are on par with the action, then The Silver Bear can be a hit it has the makings of becoming.
MORE: Michael B. Jordan’s Without Remorse Gets 2020 Release Date
Source: Deadline
