After turning “Apex” into a quick Netflix hit, Charlize Theron and Baltasar Kormákur are already lining up another run at the action-thriller lane. The pair are reteaming on “Six Clean Kills,” a new Universal Pictures thriller based on an unpublished novel by Stan Parish. Kormákur is set to direct and produce, while Theron will produce with an eye to star. Parish will adapt the screenplay himself, though plot details are being kept under wraps for now.
The project keeps Theron in business with Universal through her Secret Menu first-look deal. She will produce alongside AJ Dix and Beth Kono, with Kormákur producing through Blueeyes Productions.
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The timing is not especially mysterious.“Apex,” Kormákur’s Netflix survival thriller starring Theron opposite Taron Egerton, debuted on April 24 and quickly moved to No. 1 on the streamer’s English-language film list. The film reportedly held that position for two consecutive weeks. It grew to 40.8 million views in its second week, making the reunion an easy piece of post-streaming success development logic.
For Theron, “Six Clean Kills” also fits a career that has increasingly treated action not as a side trip, but as a central part of her screen identity. From “Mad Max: Fury Road” and “Atomic Blonde” to “The Old Guard” films, she has built one of the sturdier modern action résumés among A-list actors, often grounding genre mechanics in physical exhaustion, damage, and blunt-force survival.
Kormákur, meanwhile, has spent much of his career working in pressure-cooker environments, whether in “Everest,” “Adrift,” or “Apex.” His best genre work tends to place bodies against landscape, weather, panic, and bad decisions. With the “Six Clean Kills” premise still hidden, the title alone suggests something leaner and more lethal than another wilderness ordeal, but Universal is not giving away the shape of the story yet.
The filmmaker is currently shooting Netflix’s “The Big Fix,” starring Mark Wahlberg and Riz Ahmed, while Theron is filming Amazon MGM Studios’ “Tyrant.” That means “Six Clean Kills” still appears to be in development, not a fast-tracked production with a start date.
Still, this is the kind of package studios like to hold onto: a proven action star, a filmmaker coming off a streaming hit with her, a studio deal already in place, and source material the public has not yet read. For now, “Six Clean Kills” has no release date, but Universal has the pieces in motion.
