New Prime movie bags huge Hollywood star and director
Backdraft 2, anyone?


Now here’s a match made in heaven: Glen Powell is set to star in a firefighter movie directed by Ron Howard.
Glen Powell has rapidly established himself as top Hollywood acting talent in the vein of the movie stars of old, in films like Twisters, Top Gun: Maverick and Hit Man.
And Ron Howard? He only made the quintessential firefighting movie of the 90s, Backdraft.
We could be in for a popcorn-munching treat here, folks.
The project is in the works at Amazon MGM, suggesting it will end up on Prime Video. But Amazon is also going big on cinema releases at the moment, and this film already sounds a perfect fit for the big screen.
It doesn’t have a title, but we do know it’s from a pitch by Bumblebee and The Flash writer Christina Hodson, and she is also writing the script.
It’s about childhood friends — Glen Powell presumably playing one of them — who find themselves pushed back together as firefighters at a time when fires are laying waste to parts of Texas. And as they fight those fires, the pair have to deal with their own fraught relationship.
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If this film can get close to what Lee Isaac Chung and co. did with Twisters last year, in harnessing the best of Powell to resurrect a 90s action classic, we’ll see you down the local multiplex with a big grin attached.
However, the tenor of this news suggests we’re unlikely to see the film hit cinemas before 2027. The project is in progress, but we’re not talking about shooting dates being on the horizon just yet.
In the meantime we get to see Glen Powell in The Running Man later this year.
It’s an adaptation of one of Stephen King’s stronger novels. In a kinda grim future, people take part in a game show in which they have to try not to be killed by people hunting them.
There was a 1999 movie adaption of the text, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, while this new version is directed by Edgar Wright. It’s out on November 7th.
Andrew Williams has written about tech for a decade. He has written for a stack of magazines and websites including Wired, TrustedReviews, TechRadar and Stuff.
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