Idris Elba and John Cena apparently had a good thing going in the upcoming “The Suicide Squad” sequel, because the two actors pitched an action film titled “Heads of State” over Zoom to studios and Amazon Studios just picked up the film.
Deadline has the scoop, with a report that Elba and Cena pitched around “Heads of State” to studios over a Zoom presentation together with screenwriter Harrison Query and producers Peter Safran and John Rickard from The Safran Company. According to the report, the film is “a ’90s style two-hander, a high octane premise that has a bit of ‘Air Force One‘ meets ‘Hobbs and Shaw‘” basically an odd couple coming together in a high stakes situation.
John Cena has quickly turned into a busy man in Hollywood. Since he made a splash starring in comedies “Trainwreck” and “Daddy’s Home” in 2015, Cena has starred in nearly 10 features, and he already has two blockbusters lined up for 2021, the aforementioned “Suicide Squad” sequel and “F9” as well as the recently announced spin-off of the DC film where he’ll star as Peacemaker. His career is not too dissimilar from that of Dwayne Johnson, who also went from having a wrestling career to becoming a Hollywood powerhouse. But unlike Johnson, who does basically the same character over and over, Cena has kept a bit more variety in his career, and is much better at injecting comedy into his performances.
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It seems that the project was made the old-fashioned way, by literally just watching two actors having good chemistry on a set and deciding they should ge their own star vehicle. Safran, who also served as a producer on “The Suicide Squad” reportedly came away from that film’s shoot looking for a vehicle that Cena and Elba could star in because their chemistry on set was too good. As Deadline reports, Safran turned to Query, who only has one screenwriting title but hired by Netflix last year to write a new “Three Musketeers” movie.
