John Cena and Idris Elba's Heads of State Lands Director

The Suicide Squad stars Idris Elba and John Cena are set to star in Heads of State, a new movie from producer Peter Safran, who was just announced as co-chair and co-CEO of DC Studios along with James Gunn. That movie has been in development at Amazon Studios for two years, but has finally landed a director in the form of Nobody's Ilya Naishuller. The film, which is described as Air Force One meets Midnight Run," centers on the two as being trapped together in a high-stakes situation.

The Hollywood Reporter first named Naishuller as the director. Besides Nobody, the filmmaker's name might ring some bells because of his video game-inspired action thriller Hardcore Henry. 

Air Force One, the 1990s action classic starring Harrison Ford, centers on a U.S. President who has to become an action hero after Air Force One, the Presidential jet, is hijacked. Midnight Run, meanwhile, is a buddy cop action-comedy. It centers on a bounty hunter (Robert De Niro) and mob accountant (Charles Grodin) who have to make their way to Los Angeles together.

With those two movies being mashed up, it seems likely that this is an action comedy that centers on the President and, given the plural in the title, probably the head of a different country who ends up forced into an alliance with the POTUS.

Elba and Cena are executive producers, along with John Rickard for The Safran Company. Josh Appelbaum & André Nemec wrote the screenplay, from an initial draft by Harrison Query. The script and cast was enough to get bidders excited, and Amazon won the rights during a Zoom auction in late 2020. The film is likely to be released direct to Prime Video, although in keeping with recent plans from the studio, it wouldn't be entirely surprising ot see Amazon Studios give it a limited theatrical release as well.

In the time since The Suicide Squad, Cena has kept busy in the DC Universe. He has starred in Peacemaker, and has a second season of that show on the way. As for Elba, he fimed a movie verison of his beloved series Luther, which is set to premiere on Netflix. He had small roles in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Thor: Love and Thunder, and headlined the survival horror movie Beast.