The action comedy to be produced by Stallone and Braden Aftergood for Balboa Productions watches as a mysterious murder within a retirement home for spies sparks a Cold War hero’s personal mission to find the assassin living among them.
This will be the first project falling under Stallone and Balboa’s multi-year, first-look deal with Amazon Studios, which we were first to report on last week — an agreement that will have Stallone write, direct, produce and star in both scripted and unscripted projects for the studio, for film and TV. A director has not yet been attached.
Stallone recently led the Prime Video superhero pic Samaritan and currently stars as New York Mafia capo Dwight “The General” Manfredi in the acclaimed Paramount+ crime drama series Tulsa King from creator Taylor Sheridan, which according to Nielsen scored one of the biggest cable debuts of 2022, when its premiere episode was given a Paramount Network preview, with Yellowstone as its lead-in.
Stallone reprises his MCU role of Ravager Captain Stakar Ogord in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which hits theaters May 5th, and will appear alongside his family in the docuseries The Family Stallone launching on Paramount+ on May 17. He’ll also return for the newest installment of the hit action franchise The Expendables, releasing in August via Lionsgate.
Founded by Stallone and Aftergood in 2018, Balboa Productions is a producer on both Samaritan and Tulsa King — the latter, having secured a Season 2 renewal last fall. The company is currently in post on a feature adaptation of Lost on a Mountain in Maine, a young adult survival story based on the true account of a boy’s harrowing journey through the vast wilderness of the Katahdin Mountains. Balboa is also currently prepping the genre film Scavenger Hunt, to be written and directed for MGM/Amazon by Elle Callahan.
Otting is a writer and director whose short film, Prom Car ’91, has played festivals around the world, including Fantastic Fest, garnering awards including Best Horror Comedy at Nightmares Film Festival and Best Horror Comedy at Nevermore Film Festival. He’s also written about film for a number of major media outlets and was the writer and host of Science of the Movies on Discovery Science Channel, NextMovie Daily on MTV and The Yahoo Movie Show on Yahoo.
Stallone and Balboa Productions are represented by CAA; Otting by Gersh, Kersey Management and attorney Arine Harapeti.