CBS Films Gives Antoine Fuqua a CONSENT TO KILL

Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, Brooklyn’s Finest) has been tapped as the director of Consent to Kill, a spy thriller to be produced by CBS Films in conjunction with Lorenzo DiBonaventura. Consent to Kill will be the first big-screen adaptation of Vince Flynn’s popular Mitch Rapp series of novels. The Rapp books, full of intrigue, high stakes and action, have routinely appeared on The New York Times bestseller list and resulted in Flynn being a story consultant on the fifth season of 24. Jonathan Lemkin is the screenwriter, just as he was for Fuqua’s Shooter. Hit the jump for more script details as well as my thoughts on this latest attempt by CBS Films to establish itself in the industry.

Consent to Kill was the fifth book in the Rapp series but so far it is unclear if the plot will hew to the original where Rapp, slowed with a knee injury, faced a Saudi billionaire, ex-East German Stasi spy and a wife and husband team of assassins. If the movie is not a fictionalized account of Tom Brady’s year away from football, the plot may follow that of the first book, Transfer of Power, where Islamic terrorists take over the White House and it is up to Rapp to stop them from the inside. Either way, given its Bondian overtones, Consent to Kill is definitely the better title.

The film joins Beastly, Extreme Measures and The Back-up Plan in CBS Films’ fledgling stable of hopeful hits. Honestly, Consent to Kill, if it manages to be more than just a Bourne-Bauer imitator, probably has the best chance of all to be a success. Call me pessimistic but a Vanessa Hudgens fantasy romance, a Brendan Fraser/Harrison Ford medical melodrama and a Jennifer Lopez romantic comedy do not strike me as a particularly impressive line-up. Then again, Neil Patrick Harris co-stars in Beastly, so it, at least, has a chance.