Fellow Texans and friends, actor/writer Glen Powell and indie favorite filmmaker Richard Linklater collaborated on their latest film, Netflix’s “Hit Man,” which was a huge hit at last fall’s Toronto Film Festival.
Powell poses as a seductive pseudo hit man, demolishing the archetype of a professional hit man. Powell — who’s on a roll with “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Anyone But You” turning him into the hottest rising star in Hollywood right now.
At a recent gathering in Los Angeles, Powell explained that original article, written by Skip Hollingsworth, was about Gary Johnson who was obviously a fascinating figure. Instead of being a generic hit man, he embodied the fantasy of what a hit man was. I was intrigued by that idea. I went to Rick and said there is a really interesting story here. Rick said, ‘I read that article when you were in seventh grade. I don’t know what to chase there. I don’t know where it goes.”
Powell went on to say,“ There is a part of the article about this woman that he meets who essentially is trying to kill her husband because she feels like she’s in danger. He let her off and they started this friendship. So what if we chase that?
“What if we have a guy who is good at emulating humanity but not good at participating in it? He becomes a better human on the other side. That was the entry point. Then we took some creative license. We included film noir, screwball, action and more. We brought in movies like “Double Indemnity, Body Heat” to kind of spice it up a bit.”
Powell co-wrote the script with Linklater, his first screenplay. “Just like anything with Rick, it happens organically. He’s so out of the epicenter of the business. “ Powell added, “ This is such an infusion of so many genres. None of them line up. No matter what the genre we always chose fact over fiction. We took creative license where it was going to be entertaining for the audience, but the we got really grounded the story, so that the magic trick was pulled off.”
The trick paid off indeed. With a superb ensemble, “Hit Man” is twisty, funny, entertaining to the max and laugh out loud clever. “Hit Man” drops on Netflix June 7th after a limited theatrical run.
Watch Trailer Here: https://youtu.be/pMVLQfHj6SY?si=YLV7BLl7XFuD5wuc
