Jason Statham is without a doubt one of the best action heroes working today. The English actor and producer is most renowned for his action-thriller roles or for portraying gruff and irredeemable Machiavellian villains. Jason Statham, unlike other people in the industry, is recognised for executing his own stage fights and stunts.
Statham, who was born in Derbyshire, England, did not begin his career as an actor. Instead, while he was young and working at the local market booths, he began by training karate, kickboxing, and kung fu recreationally. He had always been a passionate player and diver, and he was nominated to the British national diving squad.
Jason Statham competed in the Commonwealth Games in 1990, and shortly after, he caught the attention of labels such as French Connection, Levi’s, and Tommy Hilfiger, for whom he promoted as a model.
When acclaimed filmmaker Guy Ritchie opted to exploit Jason Statham’s professional expertise working in market stalls and cast him in ‘Snatch’ and ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,’ the actor made the move to cinema.
Statham had no time to look back after the economic success of these films landed him the part of Frank Martin in the ‘Transporter’ trilogy. Since then, Jason Statham has appeared in a number of action and heist films, including ‘The Italian Job,’ ‘The Mechanic,’
‘Crank,’ and ‘Spy.’ However, he experienced his greatest commercial success in cinema when he joined the ‘The Expendables’ trilogy and as Deckard Shaw in the ‘Fast and Furious’ films.
Currently, Jason Statham is regarded as one of the most bankable performers in the industry, and he has been widely lauded for being a driving force behind the action movie revivals of the 2000s and 2010s. The question you must be wondering is, “What is the next Jason Statham film?” The good news is that we have a definitive answer to that question. The following is a list of upcoming Jason Statham films and television shows in 2019 and 2020.
1. Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw (2019): ‘Deadpool‘ director David Leitch helms the upcoming ‘Fast and Furious’ spin-off titled, ‘Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw’, which is all set to release on August 2, 2019. Leitch had this to say regarding ‘Hobbs and Shaw’: “I think it’s going to be a little bit more grounded because it’s the beginning. It’s an origin story, in a sense. It’s not an origin story, but we’re starting a franchise. So we want it to be a little bit more grounded, a little bit more character-centric. We’re going to set up the stakes for these guys and their relationship, but we’re also going to have some great set pieces and some action that you’d expect from that type of franchise.”
2. Viva La Madness (TBA): ‘Viva La Madness’ is an upcoming tv series, which will be produced by Gaumont International, of ‘Hannibal‘ fame, based on J.J. Connolly’s novel of the same name with Jason Statham as the lead. Connolly will handle writing the screenplay and is also executive producing alongside Statham and Steven Chasman. ‘Viva la Madness’ explores the story of an anonymous hero who is stranded in the Caribbean, far away from the criminal activities that he once wanted to get away from. He soon joins forces with two robust London gangsters: the menacing Sonny King and his paranoid partner Roy “Twitchy” Burns, which is exactly the opposite of what he wanted in the first place.
If you have seen ‘Layer Cake’, the British crime movie, you will relate to the events that play out in the show even better, since ‘Viva La Madness’ is a sequel to ‘Layer Cake‘. It was originally conceived of as a film with Daniel Craig set to reprise his role as the criminal who gets pulled back into his old life of crime while trying to get away from it.
However, it was later announced that ‘Viva La Madness’ was shifting to the realm of television, and Jason Statham would be playing the lead instead, in a move that signals a recent trend of big actors and notable projects moving to television shows. The show has been in stuck in stages of development for a long time,
but Statham has remained committed to shooting it, and it has also been picked up by Netflix. Although no release date has been set yet, we expect Jason Statham to do justice to ‘Viva La Madness’, based on his previous experiences with British crime films.
3. Spy 2 (TBA): Paul Feig, the director of popular films such as ‘Freaks and Geeks’ and ‘Ghostbusters,’ wants to return to helm the sequel to the Melissa McCarthy-starrer ‘Spy,’ which made over $200 million at the box office. Although nothing is known about
the narrative of ‘Spy 2,’ the sequel will this time revolve around Statham’s character Rick. In an interview about the sequel, the director stated this. “That’s another universe I don’t want to leave behind.”
Although Feig may have the right setting for the sequel, it appears that we will have to wait a bit for it to be released, since the studio is not currently interested in developing ‘Spy 2’ and is instead focusing on the ‘Kingsman’ films. The filmmaker himself verified this.