Idris Elba Returning to Netflix for Another Big Project

Idris Elba will star in another major Netflix movie. The Luther star will lead Bang!, a film adaptation of the Dark Horse Comics series by Matt Kindt and Wilfredo Torres. David Leitch, who directed Deadpool 2 and Bullet Train, will direct the film. Elba has starred in several Netflix Originals, including The Harder They Fall and Beasts of No Nation.

Bang! begins with a terrorist cult looking to start the apocalypse with novels meant to brainwash readers, reports Variety. The world's most celebrated spy is sent out to find the author and kill them before things get worse. Kindt will adapt the comics with Zak Olkewicz (Bullet Train). Elba is a co-producer on the movie with Leitch and Kelly McCormick for 87 North; and Mike Richardson and Keith Goldberg for Dark Horse.

Netflix and Dark Horse also announced Mind MGMT, based on another comic series by Kindt. This one is a series centering on a young woman who finds a top-secret mind management program. During her journey, she finds weaponized psychics, talking dolphins, and immortal pursuers as she tries to find the program's greatest success and worst failure. She questions everything she sees, though. Curtis Gwinn (Stranger Things) is executive producing with Richardson and Goldberg.

Dark Horse and Netflix are working on several other new projects and have already seen success with The Umbrella Academy, Polar, Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles, and Chickenhare and the Hammer of Darkness. Blake Lively is signed to star in Lady Killer, a thriller about a 1950s housewife who leads a secret life as an assassin. A series based on Revenge Inc., about an underground company helping people seek revenge, is also in development.

Elba has already worked with Netflix on The Harder They Fall, Beasts of No Nation, Concrete Cowboy and Turn Up Charlie. He recently finished work on the Luther reunion movie, in which he reprises his breakout role as DCI John Luther. Netflix plans to release the film, although the original series is now only available to stream on Hulu and Pluto TV. Elba's next movie, Beast, opens on Aug. 19.

Last month, Elba told The Daily Mail he hopes to work with Leonardo DiCaprio on a future project. "I went to a friend's party recently and he was there, and we got into a conversation," Elba said. "It just felt like, you know what, I would love to work with this dude." Elba said he thought DiCaprio was a "really nice guy" and an "incredible actor."