John Boyega has joined forces with Hollywood legend Robert De Niro for an upcoming crime thriller called The Formula at Netflix.
Gerard McMurray, director of The First Purge and Netflix’s Burning Sands, will produce and helm the project, which centers on a Formula One racing prodigy who becomes a getaway driver in order to care for and rescue his family, per TheWrap. De Niro will also produce with Jane Rosenthal and Berry Welsh.
Boyega, famously known for the latest Star Wars trilogy, recently earned rave reviews for his role in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe film anthology. He also opened up in a new interview about being imprisoned by a franchise.
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“Being in a big franchise, it’s kind of like luxury jail sometimes for an actor when you want to do something else,” Boyega said in a Q&A with CinemaBlend. The British star has been vocal about Disney’s epic fail on fully developing his character’s story arc in the Star Wars trilogy.
“Because remember, in a franchise you’re working on one character for many years, which can starve your other muscles,” Boyega continued. “And in wanting to be in something where I knew that I’d play a different type of role, a different type of man, and then knowing Steve [McQueen] through, we’re all a part of the same industry so I’d heard about Steve’s directing style, I was really really curious and excited to have the opportunity anyway to be a part of it. And when it came through I was on the [telephone] like, ‘This is my moment.’”
The actor revealed in November that he had “a very honest, a very transparent conversation” with a Disney executive about the criticisms over his Star Wars role.
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“There was a lot of explaining on their end in terms of the way they saw things. They gave me a chance also to explain what my experience was like,” Boyega said. “I’d hope that me being so open with my career, at this stage, would help the next man, the guy that wants to be the assistant DOP, the guy that wants to be a producer. I hope that the conversation is not such a taboo or elephant in the room now, because someone just came and said it.”
Boyega next stars in Naked Singularity and the Netflix sci-fi feature They Cloned Tyrone opposite Jamie Foxx. The film is described as a “pulpy mystery caper” that centers on “eerie events” which “thrusts an unlikely trio onto the trail of a nefarious government conspiracy,” according to IMDB.
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