Angelina Jolie and Doug Liman, who famously worked together on Mr. and Mrs. Smith, are reteaming for another thriller set in the world of spies.
Coming on top of multi-studio competition, Universal is wrapping up the final deal points to land The Initiative, a hot spy package that sees Jolie attached to star, Liman on board to direct and F. Scott Frazier writing the script.
Joe Roth and Jeff Kirschenbaum of RK Films will produce. The longstanding banner, which in recent years produced Netflix hit Damsel and Sony’s rom-com smash Anyone But You, had previously worked with Jolie on the big-budget Disney fantasy Maleficent movies.
Described as a “Training Day set in the world spycraft,” the story would see Jolie playing a rogue master spy named Bright who works outside the lines (because sometimes you need someone bad to bring down people who are even worse, as the movies have taught us). When a new agent named Charlie joins Bright’s team, he soon finds himself in situations where he isn’t sure whether his new boss is trying to kill him or simply is willing to do whatever is necessary to protect the free world.
The studio and filmmakers are hoping to move fast on this, eying a possible start of production in the first quarter of 2026.
Executive vp of production development Jay Polidoro and director of development Tony Ducret will oversee the project for the studio.
Jolie has oscillated from the fantastical, starring in 2021’s Eternals and the two Maleficent films, to the dramatic, appearing in last year’s Maria Callas biopic Maria. A project such as Initiative could return the actress to her propulsive and perhaps stylish action thriller era in which she made movies such as Salt and The Tourist.
Liman released two movies last year — Roadhouse, which was one of the biggest hit ever on Amazon MGM, and The Instigators, seen on Apple TV+. The filmmaker has a bond with Universal, having worked the studio a few times before, launching the Bourne franchise in 2002 with The Bourne Identity, and with the Tom Cruise vehicle, American Made, in 2017.
He remains attached to the underwater event film Deeper with Cruise starring and producing, which has been delayed due to specific weather window needs. (The whole movie takes place on and under water.) Liman is also developing the untitled Universal Pictures Space Film, also to star Cruise.
Frazier is a veteran scribe of the action trade, having worked on movies such as Collide, starring Nicholas Hoult and Anthony Hopkins, and XXX: The Return of Xander Cage, which brought back the Vin Diesel-starring action hero for a new outing. Last year, he and collaborator Jimmy Loweree set up the adventure two-hander Outdueled in a bidding war won by Amazon.
Liman, Frazier and Kirschenbaum are repped by CAA. Liman is additionally repped by Weintraub Tobin and Frazier is additionally repped by McKuin Frankel.
Jolie is repped by WME and Johnson Shapiro.