Oscar winners Angelina Jolie and Halle Berry are set to star in the action thriller Maude v Maude, a coveted feature project that Warner Bros. won in a heated bidding war over the weekend.
Rising filmmaker Roseanne Liang (Shadow in the Cloud) will direct from a script by Scott Mosier, who was Kevin Smith‘s longtime producing partner before branching out on his own as the co-writer and producer of the animated movie Free Birds, and the co-director of Illumination’s animated hit The Grinch.
Deadline broke the news, reporting that while plot details are being kept under wraps, insiders describe Maude v Maude as a “Bond vs. Bourne” type of spy movie. Jolie has found success playing a spy in both Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Salt, plus she starred in the original Tomb Raider movies, while Berry’s action credentials include the James Bond entry Die Another Day, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, and the boxing pic Bruised, not to mention the action-packed X-Men franchise.
Berry and Holly Jeter will produce via their company HalleHolly, while Joe Roth and Jeff Kirschenbaum will produce through their RK Films banner. Jolie will also be a producer on the project, as will Liang and Mosier. Clearly, this is a star-driven package that Warner Bros. heads Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy wanted badly enough to outbid their deep-pocketed streaming rivals, just as they did when they were running MGM and won auctions for House of Gucci starring Lady Gaga and Project Hail Mary starring Ryan Gosling.
I like their bet here on Liang, as I was a big fan of her gripping creature feature Shadow in the Cloud starring Chloë Grace Moretz and I can’t wait to see what she does here with a sizable budget and two Oscar winners front and center.
Berry is currently filming Alexandre Aja‘s horror-thriller Never Let Go, which she and Jeter are also executive producing. Jolie recently starred in Marvel’s Eternals and as a director, she has the upcoming war drama Without Blood starring Demián Bichir and Salma Hayek.
Berry and HalleHolly are represented by WME and Range Media Partners, the latter of which reps Mosier along with CAA. Liang is repped by WME and Grandview.
