Michael Keaton is about to take the stage as a Marvel comics villain in Spider-Man: Homecoming, but that won't be the only place we'll see him on screen this year. He'll also be taking on the role as a trainer of professional killers, one of which turns out to be Maze Runner star Dylan O'Brien. Keaton's character clearly looks to be up to the task as he comes across looking much tougher than we're used to seeing him. Check out the first look at American Assassin.
American Assassin is based on the novel by Vince Flynn and it follows a man named Mitch Rapp as he becomes trained to become an elite American operative. The new trailer shows us how Rapp becomes obsessed with taking revenge on those who killed his fiance during a terrorist attack, which eventually gets the attention of the US government. Rapp goes from being self-trained to entering a program led by a character played by Michael Keaton, a man described in the trailer only as a "warrior." Based on what we see though Michael Keaton's character won't only be training new recruits. Some of these scenes clearly seem to show him getting his hands dirty in the field as well.
This will be Dylan O'Brien's first lead role since the second entry in the Maze Runner series. While filming the third movie in the series O'Brien was seriously injured performing a stunt which sent him to the hospital and ended up delaying filming for quite some time. Filming on The Maze Runner: Death Cure only started back up earlier this year.
American Assassin is a potential new franchise for Dylan O'Brien, author Vince Flynn has written over a dozen books in the series and one would expect that if the first one is successful, there's a good chance they'll be looking to adapt more of them.
It certainly looks to be an interesting film based on the trailer. It gives us a sequence that we're used to seeing in similar films, a teacher telling their student to attack. In most movies, however, the student fails because they hesitate and aren't actually trying to hurt their target. In this movie, O'Brien goes right after Keaton, really trying to stab him in the gut. Although the scene still ends up in the same place those others movie do, with the student incapacitated, because Michael Keaton is a badass.
American Assassin is looking like a solid film at this point and we're looking forward to seeing more as we get closer to release. The film will be avoiding the summer movie blitz but may be just the thing we need as the fall gets going. American Assassin will debut September 15.
