Brad Pitt's Bullet Train Gets A Release Date

Sony Pictures has announced that Bullet Train, the new action-thriller from John Wick director David Leitch and starring Brad Pitt, will be released in theaters (includign IMAX and premium large formats) on Friday, April 8, 2022. Based on the book Maria Beetle by Kotaro Isaka from a screenplay by Zak Olkewicz, the film features a robust ensemble cast also including Joey King, Andrew Koji, Brian Tyree Henry, Michael Shannon, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Hiroyuki Sanada, Benito A Martínez Ocasio and Sandra Bullock. The film will follow five assassins who find themselves on a Japanese bullet train, realizing that their individual assignments are not unrelated to the others.

Bullet Train will have some other fast-themed competition when it debuts as it will open opposite Paramount Pictures' Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Ben Schwartz will return to voice the titular hedgehog in the sequel which will also reportedly bring about another popular SEGA stars, Miles "Tails" Prower and Knuckles the Echidna. The Witch and The Lighthouse filmmaker Robert Eggers will also debut his next film, The Northman, on that date as well. All three of these movies will arrive a week after Marvel's Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Not much is known about Bullet Train beyond the logline and cast, but with Leitch behind the camera a certain level of action is to be expected, and apparently it will be on full display

"Brad did 95 percent of his physical stunts — the fighting," Greg Rementer, the film's second-unit director and stunt coordinator previously told Vulture. "He's like a natural-born athlete. He really got in there!....Never have I ever done so many huge actors in one feature where all of them excelled at the physical movement of our training. So Brad, Brian, Michael Shannon, Hiroyuki Sonada, Andrew Koji — who was already a stud in terms of where he comes from with the show 'Warrior' — all these actors put out some great action and did a lot of their [own] stuff."

Production on Bullet Train began in the fall of 2020 and footage from the film is reportedly the reason that actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson was cast in Sony's Kraven the Hunter movie.

"We were fortunate to be shooting in LA during a time when artists were ready to get back to work and having Brad on the project — hot off an Oscar win and having a great script by Zak Olkewicz — really did attract the best people," Director David Leitch added. "We were able to get people back to work safely during a pandemic, which is pretty amazing."

Bullet Train will be released on April 8, 2022.