‘Sniper Elite’ Movie Coming From ‘Rampage’ Director Brad Peyton

Rampage filmmaker Brad Peyton has zeroed in on his next directing effort.

A new report says Peyton will direct a Snipe Elite movie, which will be an adaptation of the video game franchise that kicked off in 2005.

Variety reports that Peyton (Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore) will direct the “character-driven action thriller,” which “will see an elite Allied sniper, Karl Fairburne, engage in a cat-and-mouse chase through the streets of London at the height of the Blitz during World War II, as he tries to save British Prime Minister Winston Churchill from a Nazi assassin.”

Jean-Julien Baronnet (Assassin’s Creed) and game producer Jason Kingsley are producing, while Gary Graham (A Garden at the End of the World) is co-writing the script with Peyton. The writers are looking to turn this into a Sherlock Holmes meets The Bourne Identity type of thriller, with the lead character being forced to “make a choice between the fate of the war and confronting his deepest secret.” The cat-and-mouse aspect comes down to two snipers hunting each other across the city, and Baronnet promises that audiences will be rooting for both characters.

“There’s so much tension and character in this story, the potential for taut, exciting action is all there,” Peyton said in a statement. “What’s amazing about Sniper Elite is its focus on stealth and strategy, but also fun and incredible twists. I can’t wait for audiences to follow and care for a hero that will have to face the most dangerous and challenging mission of his life.”

Peyton has previously worked with actors like Dwayne Johnson on San Andreas and Rampage (San Andreas 2 is in the works), Jason Momoa in the TV series Frontier, and Aaron Eckhart in the 2016 movie Incarnate, and any of those guys seem like they might be willing to lead a film like Sniper Elite. Johnson’s schedule seems the most locked up in advance and it might strain credulity to assume that someone that massive would be an effective sniper, so I doubt he’ll actually do it. But I’m curious to see who ends up getting cast here, and if Peyton will be able to create a movie that enters the pantheon of sniper films alongside Enemy at the Gates, Sniper, Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper, Phone Booth, and Grand Piano.

“One of the things that I’m always interested in is working with people that know the source material, and he knew the source, which was great,” Kingsley said. “Brad clearly had an in-depth knowledge of how to make a movie out of a game without compromising either. We’re not going to make a film version of the game.”

Here’s a trailer for one of the more recent games in the franchise:

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