After the mega success of “John Wick”, the two makers of the action hit went their separate ways: since then, Chad Stahelski has been the sole director to push the “John Wick” series to ever greater heights. On the one hand, David Leitch tried his hand at blockbuster cinema with works such as “Hobbs & Shaw” and “Deadpool 2” and also founded a new action company with his wife Kelly McCormick.
87North, as the company is known, takes two complementary approaches. Behind the camera, emerging talent is given the opportunity to direct. At the same time, they have built what is probably the best training environment for actors today. In the meantime, according to interview statements from “Stranger Things” star David Harbour Known as “The Church Of Pain,” character stars who wouldn’t normally be associated with action roles have also been groomed for it.
Films like “Nobody” with Bob Odenkirk, “Violent Night” with David Harbor and “Kate” with Mary Elizabeth Winstead were made this way in addition to Leitch’s own works such as “Bullet Train” with Brad Pitt and the upcoming “The Fall Dude “.Ryan Gosling. The latest project from forge 87North also fits into this scheme.
“With Love”: Action with Ke Huy Quan
‘With Love’ is the name of the action film that has now been announced, but nothing is known about the content yet. But those responsible sound promising and fuel expectations. So give Leitch and McCormick the action specialist Jonathan Eusebio the chance to celebrate his directorial debut. He has been in the business for over 25 years. He started as a stuntman on shows like “Charmed” and “Angel” and worked his way up to become a stunt and fight choreographer after films like “300” and “Serenity.”
In this position he was involved in numerous Marvel films such as ‘Iron Man 2’, ‘The Avengers’ and ‘Black Panther’, among others. He also served as battle coordinator for the first three “John Wick” films and was most recently part of the permanent 87North team, including “Deadpool 2,” “Kate,” “Violent Night” and the upcoming “The Fall Guy ‘. “. He was also heavily involved as a stunt coordinator in the “Star Wars” series “Obi-Wan Kenobi”.
This time we go to the “Church Of Pain”. Ke Huy Quan sent. The former child star (“The Goonies”, “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”) recently celebrated his mega comeback – with the Oscar success “Everything Everywhere All At Once”, where he was already able to demonstrate his action skills. In addition to series appearances such as in the second season of the Marvel series ‘Loki’, he has probably thought very carefully about where he wants to continue his career in cinema and has now chosen ‘With Love’.
What makes us even more curious: we can expect top-notch action from Ke Huy Quan. The training at the “Church Of Pain” will ensure this – but it also brings a lot of prior knowledge. It’s not just because of “Everything Everywhere All At Once” that we know you don’t have to start all over again with him. On the contrary: Ke Huy Quan has an action background.
As a child, he learned to love fighting on the set of “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and turned it into his hobby. Steven Spielberg had him learn some martial arts for his role. The child star trained under legendary stuntman Philip Tan (including “Batman”, “Inception”). This fascinated him so much that he continued to train privately. He also used the knowledge he gained behind the camera. He was part of the regular stunt team of action specialist Corey Yuen for several years and was involved in, among others, “X-Men” (2000), the Jet-Li actor “The One” (2001) and several Hong Kong films. In the hard martial arts action hit “Bloodbrother – The Fighter, the Winner” from 1991, which was indexed for a long time in this country, he demonstrated his skills very early in his career. So we can’t wait to see what Ke Huy Quan has to offer years later.
Universal Pictures will release “With Love” in theaters worldwide. It is not yet known when this will be the case. Based on the currently available information, a publication in 2025 seems very possible.