Flight Risk, the action thriller which marks Mel Gibson’s first time in the director’s chair since Hacksaw Ridge was supposed to be released on October 18th, but Lionsgate announced today that they have pushed that release back to January 24, 2025. While this delay is disappointing, mid-budget action movies such as Flight Risk can do well in January; David Ayer’s The Beekeeper is a recent example.

Directed by Mel Gibson and written by Jared Rosenberg, Flight Risk finds Wahlberg playing a pilot transporting an Air Marshall (Michelle Dockery) accompanying a fugitive (Topher Grace) to trial. As they cross the Alaskan wilderness, tensions soar, and trust is tested, as not everyone on board is who they seem.”

Our own Chris Bumbray was able to see a trailer for Flight Risk at CinemaCon in Las Vegas earlier this year and teased that Wahlberg is playing “WAY against type” in the movie. “He even shaved his head to look like he has a bald pate,” Bumbray wrote. “Looks like a really tight kickass thriller, and Gibson REALLY makes Walhberg look crazy in this.” We finally got to see the trailer for ourselves this summer, and yep, this is Wahlberg as we’ve never seen him before.

The new release date will see Flight Risk open alongside Screamboat, a horror reimagining of Disney’s Steamboat Willy, in which a murderous version of Mickey Mouse brings death to the passengers of a late-night ferry. Inheritance, a thriller starring Phoebe Dynevor and Rhys Ifans, and Valiant One, an action thriller starring Chase Stokes and Lana Condor, will also open on the same date. Still, it’s less busy than the film’s previous date, which would have found it opening alongside six other movies, including the highly anticipated Smile 2.

Gibson’s next directorial outing could be the long-awaited Lethal Weapon 5. “I’m going to direct the fifth film in the Lethal Weapon series. You know, Richard Donner, who did the other four, sadly passed away. He was a good friend, and he kind of tasked me with carrying the flag home on that one,” Gibson said earlier this summer. “It’ll be an honor for me to do that. He [Richard Donner] had gotten a fair way into the screenplay, so we’ve used what was there, and we kept poking at it, working at it a little. I’m pretty happy with it, it’s good, I had a lot of fun doing it.“

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While we wait to see whether or not Warner Bros. is going to give Lethal Weapon franchise star Mel Gibson the chance to direct Lethal Weapon 5, Lionsgate is preparing to give the Gibson-directed action thriller Flight Risk a theatrical release on October 18th – and the marketing for Flight Risk has officially begun today with the unveiling of a trailer, which you can check out in the embed above!

Scripted by Jared Rosenberg, Flight Risk has the following synopsis: In this high-stakes suspense thriller, Academy Award nominee Mark Wahlberg (Actor in a Supporting Role, 2006 – The Departed) plays a pilot transporting an Air Marshal (Michelle Dockery) accompanying a fugitive (Topher Grace) to trial. As they cross the Alaskan wilderness, tensions soar and trust is tested, as not everyone on board is who they seem.

Gibson produced the film alongside John Davis, John Fox, and Bruce Davey, with Alex Lebovici, Jenny Hinkey, Ryan D. Smith, Natasha Stassen, Allen Cheney, Christopher Woodrow, K. Blaine Johnston, Christian Mercuri, Petr Jákl, Vicki Christianson, Nick Guerra, Russell Hollander, Jon Huddle, Patrick Josten, Walter Josten, and Jordan Wagner serving as executive producers. The film is coming our way from Lionsgate, in association with Media Capital Technologies / Hammerstone Studios. It’s an Icon production and a Davis Entertainment Company production.

CinemaCon attendees got to see a trailer for Flight Risk earlier this year, and JoBlo’s own Chris Bumbray was in attendance. He wrote that the film “seems commercial. Michelle Dockery is a US Marshal flying a witness (Topher Grace) to testify against the mob, but the pilot of the plane is a psychopathic hit man played by Mark Wahlberg playing WAY against type. He even shaved his head to look like he has a bald pate. Looks like a really tight kickass thriller, and Gibson REALLY makes Walhberg look crazy in this. Scored by a cover of Talking Heads’ ‘Psycho Killer.’“ As you can see, that seems to have been the same trailer that has made its way online today.

What did you think of the Flight Risk trailer? Will you be catching this film on the big screen in October? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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Lionsgate announced release dates for a few movies today, including Flight Risk, Mel Gibson’s first time in the director’s chair since Hacksaw Ridge. The action thriller, which stars Mark Wahlberg, will be released on October 18th.

Directed by Mel Gibson and written by Jared Rosenberg, Flight Risk finds Wahlberg playing a pilot transporting an Air Marshall (Michelle Dockery) accompanying a fugitive (Topher Grace) to trial. As they cross the Alaskan wilderness, tensions soar and trust is tested, as not everyone on board is who they seem.”

Our own Chris Bumbray was able to see a trailer for Flight Risk at CinemaCon in Las Vegas last month and he teased that Wahlberg is playing “WAY against type” in the movie. “He even shaved his head to look like he has a bald pate,” Bumbray wrote. “Looks like a really tight kickass thriller, and Gibson REALLY makes Walhberg look crazy in this.” Gibson is always good behind the camera, so I’m sure plenty of you will be pleased to see him back at the helm. It’s been too long.

Lionsgate also announced that The Killer’s Game, an action comedy directed by JJ Perry, would be released on September 13th. The film stars Dave Bautista as Joe Flood, a top hitman who is diagnosed with a terminal illness and decides to take matters into his own hands by taking a hit out on himself. But when the very hitmen he hired also target his ex-girlfriend, he must fend off an army of assassin colleagues and win back the love and his life before it’s too late. The Killer’s Game also stars Sofia Boutella, Terry Crews, Scott Adkins, Pom Klementieff, and Ben Kingsley. Bumbray also caught a look at this film at CinemaCon, saying it “Looks like a hardcore, R-rated action flick and might be Bautista’s John Wick.“

The long-awaited Den of Thieves sequel, Den of Thieves: Pantera, will be released on January 10, 2025. Gerard Butler and O’Shea Jackson Jr. return for the sequel, which finds Big Nick (Butler) back on the hunt in Europe and closing in on Donnie (Jackson), who is embroiled in the treacherous and unpredictable world of diamond thieves and the infamous Panther mafia, as they plot a massive heist of the world’s largest diamond exchange.

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Lionsgate had a whole lot of interesting projects to promote at CinemaCon today. Alexandre Aja’s Never Let Go, The Crow remake, the Margot Robbie-produced Monopoly, Guy Ritchie’s In the Grey and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, Highlander, Borderlands, a Blumhouse reimagining of The Blair Witch Project, the John Wick spin-off Ballerina, the Michael Jackson biopic Michael, they all got a moment in the spotlight in one way or another. And that’s far from the complete list. Attendees also got to see trailers and previews of multiple other films, and we’ve got a bit of a round-up compiled below.

The Killer’s Game: An action comedy directed by stuntman J.J. Perry and starring Dave Bautista, Sofia Boutella, Terry Crews, Pom Klementieff, and Ben Kingsley. Based on Jay Bonansinga’s novel, The Killer’s Game follows a veteran assassin (Bautista), who is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and authorizes a hit on himself to avoid the pain that is destined to follow. But soon after, he finds out that he was misdiagnosed— and must fend off an army of former colleagues trying to kill him. A trailer for this film was shown during the panel, and JoBlo’s own Chris Bumbray reports that “The person in charge of the contract is Pom Klementieff, who hates Bautista because he killed her father and she calls in all the assassins in Europe to kill him. Looks like a hardcore, R-rated action flick and might be Bautista’s John Wick.“

Flight Risk: A “very slick action thriller” directed by Mel Gibson and starring Mark Wahlberg. CinemaCon attendees got to see a trailer for this one, and Bumbray writes that it “seems commercial. Michelle Dockery is a US Marshal flying a witness (Topher Grace) to testify against the mob, but the pilot of the plane is a psychopathic hit man played by Mark Wahlberg playing WAY against type. He even shaved his head to look like he has a bald pate. Looks like a really tight kickass thriller, and Gibson REALLY makes Walhberg look crazy in this. Scored by a cover of Talking Heads’ ‘Psycho Killer.’“

Also promoted was director Joe Carnahan’s Shadow Force, which is about “an estranged couple with a bounty on their heads who must go on the run with their son to avoid their former employer, a shadow ops unit sent to kill them.” The film stars Kerry Washington and Omar Sy, and Bumbray said it’s “another cool looking action flick in the John Wick vein.“

A trailer for The Strangers: Chapter 1 was shown, but it may have been the same trailer we’ve already seen online. Directed by Renny Harlin and shot simultaneously with two sequels (Chapter 2 and Chapter 3), The Strangers: Chapter 1 centers on a character played by Madelaine Petsch (Riverdale) as she drives cross-country with her longtime boyfriend (Gutierrez) to begin a new life in the Pacific Northwest. When their car breaks down in Venus, Oregon, they’re forced to spend the night in a secluded Airbnb, where they are terrorized from dusk till dawn by three masked strangers. Lionsgate plans from there to expanding the story in new and unexpected ways with its sequels. JoBlo’s own Lance Vlcek, who attended the panel with Bumbray, reports that these films are being sold as “an origin story of how the Strangers came to be.“

Another trailer shown during the panel was for the comedy Good Fortune, which was directed by Aziz Ansari – who also stars in the film alongside Seth Rogen and Keanu Reeves. Bumbray reports, “Ansari is a broke guy who goes to work for a rich asshole, played by Rogen. Reeves plays an angel! Even has wings. He’s a f*ck-up angel who wants to save Ansari from killing himself. So what he does is he swaps Ansari and Rogen’s lives. But, Reeves thinks Ansari will realize ‘wealth won’t solve his problems’ but Ansari loves being rich and won’t go back to where he was before. The idea backfires so much it costs Reeves his wings, so now the three guys, Rogen, Ansari and Reeves are all stuck together. Looks hilarious and might become a HUGE hit. Reeves is really hilarious in it.” After the trailer was shown, Ansari took the stage. He said he “hates that comedies are no longer going to theaters. So he wanted to prove you could make a big comedy with stars that will be hit. He wanted it to be in the vein of big comedies like Anchorman and 40 Year Old Virgin. Keanu – the man Chad Stahelski couldn’t break while making the John Wick movies – actually broke his knee by tripping on a run in his dressing room. He did the whole movie with a broken knee but you can’t tell. He wanted to do everything and just plowed through.“

What do you think of the Lionsgate line-up that was promoted at CinemaCon? Which of these movies are you looking forward to? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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I haven't seen director Luis Prieto's 2012 remake of the Nicolas Winding Refn film PUSHER, but I really enjoyed his 2017 thriller KIDNAP, starring Halle Berry (pictured above). Because of that, I'm looking forward to checking out his next project, the action thriller FLIGHT RISK.

Written by Chad Law and Shane Dax Taylor, FLIGHT RISK will tell the story of 

a group of strangers who wake up with amnesia on a bullet-ridden plane, which is running on autopilot. They have no idea who they are, how they got there or who they can trust.

We have covered some films written by Law before, including the apocalyptic vampire film DAYLIGHT'S END and the Van Damme / Lundgren team-up BLACK WATER, so his involvement with this project makes me even more interested to see how it will turn out. Law and Taylor have previously collaborated on the Scott Adkins film CLOSE RANGE and the 2015 thriller ISOLATION.

FLIGHT RISK is being produced by Robert Aaronson and Automatic Media's Ray Haboush, with Robert Halmi and Jim Reeve of Great Point serving as executive producers.

Prieto said he was 

immediately hooked by the brilliant concept at the heart of this project, and I’m excited by the possibilities for an amazing cinematic experience."

Aaronson and Haboush added: 

We were convinced from the very beginning that Luis would be the perfect director for this white-knuckle ride of a movie."

We'll be keeping an eye on FLIGHT RISK as the project continues to move forward. 
 

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