Anna Daniels
Bayhem won’t even stop for a pandemic. Michael Bay is proving to be quite the lockdown busybody, following up his coronavirus-inspired thriller with a feature film adaptation of a new audiobook by Mark Greaney, Armored. Bay is producing the cartel crime drama with 3 Arts’ Erwin Stoff for Sony and are looking to hire a writer for the project.
Deadline reports that Sony Pictures acquired the movie rights to Armored, based on the new audiobook written by Mark Greaney, the writer behind the Gray Man bestsellers and co-author of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan novels.
Michael Bay is producing Armored through a new deal with Sony, along with 3 Arts’ Erwin Stoff, producer of The Call of the Wild, 13 Hours, and Edge of Tomorrow. The two of them plan to find a writer “quickly.”
The audiobook, which will be released as an Audible Original later in 2020 and be published as a traditional novel later, follows “a high-risk security contractor who suffers from old wounds– both physical and mental– and reluctantly takes a job working on a heavily armed convoy shuttling UN delegates through Mexico’s ‘cartel country.’ High on the ‘Devil’s Spine’ of the Sierra Madre, the mission turns into a desperate struggle for survival as corrupt police, rival gangs and an enemy within all try to destroy the tiny motorcade before the peace talks bear fruit.”
But here’s the twist: sources tell Deadline that the movie might not focus on Mexico and drug cartels. It’s uncertain what kind of narrative the movie will pivot to, since the entire premise is focused on a mission through Mexico’s “cartel country.” But whatever writer gets hired by Bay and Stoff will have to figure that out. However, a cartel crime movie sounds like it’s right up Bay’s alley, which makes you wonder what he and Stoff are planning to change Armored into. It sounds like it’s very early days for the film, however, which likely won’t get started in earnest until after the pandemic.
Bay has been keeping the Bayhem going, even during the coronavirus pandemic. Earlier this week, it was confirmed that Bay and Adam Goodman are teaming up to produce Songbird, a pandemic thriller that is said to “take an unusual approach to shooting a movie in Los Angeles during the lockdown.” Songbird is set to be the first major coronavirus-set feature film, which will likely be filmed as a screenlife film, shot remotely by the cast and crew.
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