Adam Driver is back in the news again but not for a rejected Star Wars movie, this time it’s for landing a starring role in hostage crime drama series Rabbit, Rabbit for Netflix, described as in the vein of Dog Day Afternoon.
The contemporary series is set at a truck stop in southern Illinois. When an escaped convict is cornered by law enforcement at a truck stop, he takes hostages in an effort to bargain for his freedom. But the standoff soon escalates into an unmanageable social experiment with his captives, as well as an emotional poker match with a veteran FBI Crisis Negotiator trained in “tactical empathy.”
It is being written by Peter Craig, who wrote the screenplay for Top Gun: Maverick and created Apple series Dope Thief, which starred Brian Tyree Henry, and directed by Philip Barantini, the man behind the infamous one-shot style of Netflix’s smash hit British series Adolescence.
Deadline understands that a script was sent out using the Embershot software, where buyers can only read it through the app and it gives writers and their teams data as to when it was read and by whom. The service gained prominence after Zach Cregger revealed that he used it to send out the script for Weapons.
It’s believed that Netflix took the project off the table in the early stages of it being taken out and handed it a straight-to-series order. It could shoot as early as next year.
Rabbit, Rabbit is produced by Ozark producer MRC TV, which has a first-look TV deal with Craig’s Night Owl. Craig and Bryan Unkeless will exec produce for Night Owl, Barantini and Samantha Beddoe will exec produce for their It’s All Made Up Productions company. Driver also exec produces.
Barantini runs It’s All Made Up Productions with Beddoe. The company, which has minority investment from Last Week Tonight producer Avalon, also produced the Boiling Point series, which starred Stephen Graham, for the BBC. It’s All Made Up also recently had feature film Wasteman, directed by Cal McMau and written by Hunter Andrews and Eoin Doran, at TIFF. The prison thriller stars Tom Blyth and David Jonsson.
