Apple Original Films has won the Hollywood bidding war for Jon Watts‘ thriller starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt.
Watts will write, direct and produce the thriller. Clooney and Pitt will star and produce via their respective production labels, Smokehouse Pictures and Plan B Entertainment. The project will center on two lone wolf fixers assigned to the same job.
Clooney and Pitt last co-starred onscreen in the Ocean’s 11 movies and were also in the Coen Bros. movie Burn After Reading.
Last week, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that the film was the subject of a bid frenzy, with Apple vying with the likes of Sony, Netflix and Lionsgate for rights to the package from the Spider-Man: Homecoming filmmaker. Amazon, Annapurna, Universal, MGM and Warner Bros. were also believed to be in the mix.
Securing Watts’ coveted feature is another coup for Apple Original Films. The fledgling studio, with the deepest of deep pockets, has an ever-expanding lineup of original features, including Antoine Fuqua’s Emancipation, starring and produced by Will Smith; the highly sought after film Killers of the Flower Moon, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro; Spirited, a musical rendition of Charles Dickens’ classic holiday story, starring Will Ferrell, Ryan Reynolds and Octavia Spencer; and Raymond and Ray, a new feature film starring Ewan McGregor and Ethan Hawke.
Clooney, Pitt and Watts are repped by CAA. Clooney is additionally repped by Lichter Grossman, Pitt by Brillstein Entertainment Partners and Goodman Genow, and Watts by Ziffren Brittenham.
