Looks like Dwayne Johnson needs to update his personal information and write down a new name as his emergency contact: Watchmen and Aquaman actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen II.
Johnson and his frequent collaborator Beau Flynn have teamed up to produce a high-octane action movie called Emergency Contact, which has Abdul-Mateen II on board as an executive producer and the film’s star. Details are being kept under wraps for now, but the film is described as “a high-concept, high-octane action film set in the underground music scene of Austin, Texas.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. preemptively picked up a pitch for Emergency Contact from writers Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani, a pair of scribes who created the Amazon series Informer, wrote the Jodie Foster legal drama The Mauritanian, and also wrote the long-in-the-works Black Adam, which will serve as Dwayne Johnson’s big entrance into the world of DC superheroes.
Abdul-Mateen is attached to star and executive produce. He has skyrocketed into a major player in a very short amount of time, going from the Netflix series The Get Down, popping up in small roles in Baywatch, The Greatest Showman, and The Handmaid’s Tale, and leveling up in 2018’s Aquaman as the villainous Black Mantis. The next year, he played the significant role of Cal in HBO’s Watchmen for showrunner Damon Lindelof, and then memorably played Bobby Seale in Aaron Sorkin’s Netflix drama The Trial of the Chicago 7.
But it appears that Adbul-Mateen II is just getting started. He’s the lead of the new Candyman movie, which was delayed due to the pandemic, and he’s carving out roles in more action films like Aquaman 2, The Matrix 4, and George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road prequel, Furiosa. And amusingly, before he appears in Emergency Contact, he’ll star in another film with a medically adjacent title: Ambulance, a Speed-like action movie from Michael Bay, the master of cinematic explosions. (And considering how incredibly dangerous the behind-the-scenes video from that film’s set looked when it came out earlier this year, I wouldn’t be surprised if those involved had to rely on real ambulances and emergency contacts before all was said and done.)
Mateen II, Haines, and Noshirvani will executive produce Emergency Contact alongside Scott Sheldon (Jungle Cruise, Red Notice). Seven Bucks Productions alums Hiram Garcia and Dany Garcia will produce the film with Johnson and Flynn, who have worked together on nine movies since 2012.
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