Keanu Reeves Is Latest Movie Star to Go TV

When in doubt, go TV. That is the new Hollywood mantra, as every working producer, director, writer and actor is checking out alternatives to green-screen comic-book movies. Matthew McConaughey, Clive Owen and others are seeing the wisdom of taking a detour from Hollywood formula fare for often lucrative and image-enhancing roles that give them a chance to display their chops.

It’s been a while since Keanu Reeves hit his stride as an action star in “Speed” and the “Matrix” franchise.  Reeves is not going gently into his 50s with Hollywood fare (see long-delayed “47 Ronin,” his directing effort “Man of Tai Chi,” and indie “Generation Um,” and coming up, Eli Roth B flick “Knock, Knock” and indies “John Wick” and “The Whole Truth”).

 

Hence the turn to television. Slingshot Global Media has attached Reeves as executive producer and star of the television series “Rain,” based on Barry Eisler’s New York Times best-selling series.  Chad Stahelski and David Leitch (Summit’s “John Wick”) will produce with Eisler. Slingshot Global Media will executive produce and distribute the show. In the action drama Reeves plays globe-trotting John Rain, a half-Japanese, half-American contract assassin who specializes in taking out his targets by making their deaths look natural. A lonely outsider, Rain knows that being a hitman prevents him from bringing intimacy into his life. Eisler’s novels featuring Rain include “A Clean Kill in Tokyo,” “A Lonely Resurrection,” “Winner Take All,” “Redemption Games,” “Extremis,” “The Killer Ascendant,” “The Detachment,” and “Graveyard of Memories.” 

 

Rain will be Reeves’ first major starring and producing role in a television series, and Slingshot’s first officially announced project since the company formed in February.  Slingshot Global Media wants to use this series as an entry into the “expanding television space,” the company stated. Their plan is to work closely with talent to develop series and limited-run programming for both traditional broadcast and cable networks, in addition to on demand and premium pay services.