The Guns of Christmas Past: Liev Schreiber Joins "Christmas Carol Meets John Wick" Movie
The continuing trend of Wick-sploitation movies has perhaps reached its fever pitch with news of The Guns of Christmas Past. According to Deadline, Ray Donovan and X-Men Origins: Wolverine star Liev Schrieber is in talks to lead the film which will be directed by Xavier Gens (Gangs of London, Hitman), Described as "A Christmas Carol meets John Wick," the film will follow Ebb, a former mob hitman that is "brought out from hiding when his former best friend and partner is killed. Ebb penetrates the compound of his enemy to exact revenge but the ghosts of past, present and future all arrive to thwart his plans." Andrew Hilton wrote the script.
XYZ Films is putting the project together, shopping it at Cannes later this summer. In a statement, they write: "Coming from XYZ, and given our experience delivering a fresh approach to action through such films as our Raid franchise, we see this as an action franchise vehicle akin to the breakout film Nobody, which was an enormous success."
Director Gens adds, "I am excited to work with Liev and XYZ Films and bring a modern design style to this unique and original script. I hope to follow in the tradition of classic holiday action movies like Die Hard, and create a really fun film that audiences will come back to year after year."
The success of John Wick has spawned countless imitators in the wake of its success. Some of these just take the style and supplant a new narrative and characters on it, like Atomic Blonde. Sometimes the team behind the John Wick franchise will actually apply the formula to their own movies like Nobody (John Wick but he's a middle-aged family man) and Violent Night (John Wick but Santa Claus). Others, like Hotel Artemis and Gunpowder Milkshake, have gotten made simply because of the newfound enthusiasm for this style of action movie, often with mixed results.
Coming off the success of playing Ray Donovan for seven season and a feature film, Schreiber can next be seen in the upcoming biopic Golda, where he plays Henry Kissinger, and in Wes Anderson's new movie Asteroid City. The actor is also taking on the role of Otto Frank, the father of Anne Frank, in the upcoming National Geographic series A Small Light, which can currently be seen on Disney+ and Hulu.