Sandra Bullock finds next Netflix film, Unforgiven from Mission: Impossible writer
Sandra Bullock isn’t going back in the Bird Box (yet), but she is going back to Netflix.
The Oscar-winning actress from films including Gravity and Ocean’s 8 will star in a feature film adaptation of Unforgiven, a British limited series that was first broadcast in 2009. Christopher McQuarrie, who directed and wrote Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation and its sequel Fallout, pens the adaptation, with German filmmaker Nora Fingscheidt directing.
Unforgiven, which aired overseas as a three-part event series, featured actress Suranne Jones as Ruth Slater, a woman imprisoned for a violent crime who attempts to rebuild her life after being released from prison in a society that refuses to forgive her. Ruth then seeks out her estranged younger sister, whom she was forced to leave behind.
Bird Box, a sci-fi dystopian movie, was Bullock’s first collaboration with the streaming platform. According to Netflix, though the numbers remain unconfirmed by a third party, the number of households that watched Bird Box broke records for the streaming platform. Author Josh Malerman, whose novel served as the basis for that film, confirmed a Bird Box sequel is in development in book form.
Fingscheidt’s Systemsprenger, translated as System Crasher, marked the director’s feature film directorial debut and her win at the 2019 Berlin International Film Festival for the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize. Following numerous awards, Systemsprenger was chosen as Germany’s entry for Best International Feature Film in the 2020 Oscar race.
McQuarrie continues work on the next two Mission: Impossible movies, marking the franchise’s seventh and eighth installments. He’s also developing Showtime’s adaptation of Bill Clinton and James Patterson’s novel The President Is Missing.
“This one is near and dear to my heart,” McQuarrie wrote on Twitter of Unforgiven, adding that he’s honored to know it’s in such good hands,” and that a first draft was written almost a decade ago.
Bullock, meanwhile, is involved with another streaming platform in developing a series for Amazon that’s loosely based on her college life in the 1980s.
This article has been updated with a first-look photo at Bullock’s character.
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