Sterling K. Brown is set to headline Amazon Studios' original action movie Coyote Blue, with the script coming from John Wick's Derek Kolstad. The streamer won a competitive bidding war for the pitch, which is also set to mark the feature directorial debut of Hanelle M. Culpepper, who helmed three episodes apiece of Star Trek shows Discovery and Picard.
The plot follows a regular everyman as played by Brown, who finds himself hunted by a criminal organization seeking the mysterious cargo that he's carrying before he unleashes an unexpected and decidedly deadly set of skills against his rivals, all while navigating the rough terrain of Route 66. As well as starring, Brown will also produce with Danielle Reardon for Indian Meadows Productions, with Kolstad also on the producing team through his Tradecraft banner, along with dj2 Entertainment's Dmitri M. Johnson.
Quite frankly, this is a massively exciting team assembled for a high-concept action thriller. Brown has two Emmys and a Golden Globe under his belt for his small-screen work in The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story and This Is Us, but despite starring in Black Panther and The Predator, he's never really been given a chance to show off his chops as an action hero. Looking at the consistent quality of his work, chances are he's going to knock it out of the park.
Kolstad is no stranger to the genre, having penned the first three installments in the John Wick franchise, as well as Bob Odenkirk's Nobody and two episodes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, while he's also involved with Netflix's animated Splinter Cell series, on top of a pilot for a show based on fellow video game property Hitman.
Culpepper has a decade of experience directing television, tackling episodes of such wildly different shows like Criminal Minds, Castle, Empire, Quantico, The Originals, Gotham, Lucifer, Mayans M.C., S.W.A.T. and Amazon's upcoming Anansi Boys, so Coyote Blue seems like the ideal project for her to make the jump into feature-length filmmaking.