‘A Knight’s Tale’ Director To Bring ‘Button Man’ Movie Adaptation To Netflix
Brian Helgeland, the Oscar-winning writer ofL.A. Confidential, is getting back behind the camera to direct for the first time in four years.
Helgeland will directButton Manfor Netflix, a film adaptation of a comic about a hired killer who rebels against a bloody underground sport.DriveandThe Neon Demondirector Nicolas Winding Refn wasin talksto direct this back in 2012, but that version never came to light; now Helgeland will direct andMatt Reeveswill produce.
Varietyreports that Helgeland has signed on to directButton Man, which was previously known asButton Man: The Killing Gameand is an adaptation ofJohn WagnerandArthur Ranson’s graphic novel. Here’s how the outlet describes the film:
The strip was created for the British comic2000 AD, the same publication that birthed the character of Judge Dredd, and the story sounds like it has shades of the Arnold Schwarzenegger ’80s action filmThe Running Manand Neveldine/Taylor’sGamer, a 2009 Gerard Butler movie about convicts being controlled as violent video game avatars. As the news is constantly proving, we’re living in a world right now in which many of the ultra-rich could not possibly care less about the classes below them, so the idea of rich people sitting back and callously betting on violent gladiatorial games with actual human lives at stake doesn’t seem that far from the truth.
In addition to his Oscar win for writingL.A. Confidential(one of the best James Ellroy adaptations out there), Helgeland wroteA Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, Conspiracy Theory, Mystic River,andMan on Fire. He also wrote and directedPayback, A Knight’s Tale, The Order, and42, and his most recent movie was 2015’sLegend, the gangster film in which Tom Hardy played twin brothers. As you can see, he has plenty of experience telling gritty, morally murky stories, so this one seems like a nice fit. Maybe he could even reunite with Tom Hardy here, because Hardy sounds like he could bring some personality to Exton, the lead character.
