Dope’s Rick Famuyiwa might make a modern-day martial arts movie

By Sam Barsanti | July 25, 2017 | 10:45pm

Aux Features Film

According to Deadline, Dope director Rick Famuyiwa (who was also almost the Flash director) is in talks to direct an adaptation of Jay Longino’s graphic novel Son Of Shaolin. Longino himself wrote the first draft of the script and will serve as an executive producer along Dwayne Johnson and a number of other people whose names don’t matter as much as Dwayne Johnson’s names. (Before anyone gets too excited, though, Deadline points out that Johnson will not star.) As for Famuyiwa, studios have apparently been offering him a lot of projects since he left The Flash, but this is the one that seems to have caught his eye the most.

Publisher Image’s website describes Son Of Shaolin as a “kung-fu epic set in the back alleys and subway tunnels of Harlem, New York,” and it’s all about an “aspiring street artist” named Kyrie who is secretly the descendant of a sect of ancient Shaolin masters. Deadline seems to believe that the movie’s plot could be different, but either way it’s a martial arts story set in the present day.