Introducing Endless Mode: A New Games & Anime Site from Paste
Dev Patel poured his own blood, sweat, and tears into his 2024 directorial debut, Monkey Man—literally. “I broke my foot two weeks before the shoot, and then tore my shoulder,” he said during the film’s SXSW premiere last year, per Variety. “And in the middle of that bathroom fight on day two, I broke my hand.” Luckily for all of us, that grisly experience didn’t discourage the multi-hyphenate from remaining committed to the movie business. In fact, it seems to have spurred him on even more.
Today, Patel announced his sophomore feature, which he’ll once again write, direct, and star in. The Hollywood Reporter describes the film, titled The Peasant, as “an adrenalized revenge thriller… having shades of Braveheart and John Wick as well as notes of King Arthur as it mashes up Medieval knights with feudal India.” The film is reportedly set in the 1300s and follows a shepherd who embarks on a “rage-fueled campaign against a group of mercenary knights who ransacked his community.” There’s perhaps no one more poised to tell this particular fable than Patel, who not only starred in his own revenge thriller last year but also led A24’s King Arthur tale The Green Knight in 2021.
Production companies Fifth Season and Thunder Road (which also produced Monkey Man) are backing the film. Fifth Season was reportedly working on a different version of the script with Ms. Marvel writer Will Dunn a few years ago, but it never came to fruition. Patel’s version changes the project’s original Italian setting to a “colorfully vibrant and almost mystical” India, THR writes.
Sources for the outlet suggest that the film’s producers are hoping to turn the project into a franchise. Hopefully Patel won’t have to break any more bones to make that happen.
