Chris Hemsworth Leads Cast of Joseph Kosinski Netflix Movie Spiderhead

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Chris Hemsworth Leads A-List Trio for Joseph Kosinski's Netflix Movie 'Spiderhead'

By Allie Gemmill

Published Sep 26, 2020

'Spiderhead' also adds a 'Lovecraft Country' star and a familiar face from 'Top Gun: Maverick'.

Director Joseph Kosinski just got a killer A-list trio for his upcoming Netflix movie Spiderhead. It's been well over a year since we last told you about Spiderhead, so a quick refresher is in order. The Netflix original will be Kosinski's first post-Top Gun: Maverick project. The movie will be adapted from George Saunders' short story "Escape from Spiderhead" by Zombieland writing team Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick.

lovecraft-country-holy-ghost-jurnee-smollett — Image via HBO

On Saturday, Deadline reported Spiderhead had found its leading trio in Chris Hemsworth, Miles Teller, and Jurnee Smollett. Unfortunately, there's no word on which roles each of the actors will be tackling, respectively. This will be Hemsworth's second Netflix original following Extraction, which saw the actor re-teaming with the Russo brothers for the no-holds-barred action pic. Teller's casting means he'll be re-teaming with Kosinski following their work together on Top Gun: Maverick. Meanwhile, it seems only right that Smollett should line up her next big project considering her current hot streak in movies and television. She's already had a huge 2020 thanks to the one-two punch of Birds of Prey and HBO's Lovecraft Country.

Spiderhead is a sci-fi tale set in a not-so-distant future where prisoners can shave time off their sentences by agreeing to play human guinea pig and test out new, emotion-altering drugs. Two prisoners at the center of the story participate in the testing of a drug that can create feelings of love. The short story Spiderhead is based on, "Escape from Spiderhead," first ran in The New Yorker in 2010 before appearing in Saunders' bestselling anthology The Tenth of October. Spiderhead will be produced by Hemsworth, Reese & Wernick, Eric Newman for Screen Arcade through his first-look deal at Netflix, Oren Katzeff and Geneva Wasserman for The New Yorker Studios, and Tommy Harper and Jeremy Steckler.