Aaron Taylor-Johnson is set to join the ensemble cast of David Leitch’s action movie “Bullet Train,” starring Brad Pitt.
The Sony Pictures project is based on Kotaro Isaka’s Japanese book “Maria Beetle” and centers on a group of hitmen and assassins with conflicting motives on a train in Tokyo. Zak Olkewitz wrote the script.
Kelly McCormick is producing through 87North with Antoine Fuqua. Kat Samick is executive producing along with Ryosuke Saegusa and Yuma Terada of CTB Inc., who represent Isaka and the IP. Brittany Morrissey is the executive overseeing the project for Sony Pictures.
Pitt came on to the project in early July. He had been weighing his options since winning his first acting Oscar for Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” for playing stuntman Cliff Booth. Pitt is also attached to co-star with Emma Stone on the Damien Chazelle movie “Babylon,” which moved back the start of production to 2021, creating an opening on his schedule for “Bullet Train.”
Taylor-Johnson most recently appeared in Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” opposite John David Washington and Robert Pattinson. He will next appear in the action-spy feature, “The King’s Man,” a prequel to the “Kingsman” film series. His other credits include “A Million Little Pieces,” David McKenzie’s “Outlaw King,” Tom Ford’s “Nocturnal Animals,” “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” “Godzilla,” and Dave Lizewski’s “Kick-Ass.” The British actor began performing at age six and played a young Charlie Chaplin in the 2003 movie “Shanghai Knights.”
He is repped by WME, Brillstein Entertainment Partners and legal Sloane, Offer, Weber and Dern. The news was first reported by Deadline Hollywood.