Former WWE star Dave Bautista has his next project lined up.
The former WWE World Heavyweight Champion is slated to star in Drew Pearce’s action thriller movie, “Cooler.” Production is expected to start in summer 2023, and Pearce is directing off his script, according to Deadline.
Bautista’s Dogbone Entertainment has signed a first-look deal with FilmNation Entertainment’s newly-formed production label Infrared. This is the first project to be picked up.
The film is about “a South Beach bouncer Ray Sagona, played by Bautista, who is on the brink of finding redemption and getting his family back. But when a drug-filled safe is stolen from the club he works at, Ray is blackmailed into finding it before the Miami PD narcotics bureau comes to retrieve it on Sunday night. Now, as his past and present collide in ever-more dangerous ways, Ray must survive an epic 36-hour odyssey across Miami Beach to get that safe back… one final Herculean task on his journey towards absolution.”
Pearce will produce via his Point of No Return banner along with Bautista’s Dogbone Entertainment, Jonathan Meisner, Drake, and Future the Prince via their DreamCrew label, and Drew Simon and Sam Speiser for Infrared.
Pearce is best known for writing credits with Iron Man 3, Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation. He made his debut as a writer/director with Hotel Artemis, starring Jodie Foster and Bautista. He also wrote and directed All Hail the King, starring Ben Kingsley.
Pearce will film The Fall Guy this October for Universal, starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt. Pearce has several film and television projects in the works.
Bautista can be seen in Netflix’s film, Glass Onion: Knives Out 2. He recently wrapped M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin for Universal, which will be in theaters on February 3, 2023.
