Josh Hartnett plays a mercenary on a mission in new action movie Fight or Flight, which looks like Bullet Train on a plane. His character, Lucas Reyes, is brought back into the line of duty after living on the run for several years as he’s tasked with finding a mysterious criminal on a flight full of assassins.
Speaking to GamesRadar+, Hartnett says the movie has been a long time coming, but he was sold as soon as he read the script. “When we first started talking about the script it was 2021, and I hadn’t seen anything like it at that point,” he explains. “I didn’t know that Bullet Train was coming out, which has a sort of similar concept of assassins on a train as opposed to a plane.”
The big sell, the Oppenheimer star explains, was the style of the movie. “I liked the element of sort of ’90s style comedy, action, it felt like a throwback, contained action film, and I liked the character too,” he recalls. “I thought the character kind of just starting at the very bottom and trying to work him back up to a place where he had some dignity would be a lot of fun.”
The movie, which is due to release on Sky Cinema, is directed by James Madigan in his feature film debut. However, the director has previous experience helming Second Unit on movies like Transformers: Rise of the Beast, Snake Eyes, and The Meg, which Hartnett says sold him on his approach. “[He] had a good sense of character and a good sense of action,” he adds.
As well as its similarities to Bullet Train, there’s an element of John Wick to Fight or Flight too, which Hartnett says is no accident. “It was the same company that did John Wick,” he explains. “So we were brought in to sort of be an anti John Wick, [a] less serious John Wick but in the same sort of sense, a lot of action and a fun character who’s at the center of it.”
Alongside Hartnett, the movie also stars Bridgerton’s Charithra Chandran as one of the plane staff, The Mandalorian’s Katee Sackhoff as the person coordinating the mission, and The White Lotus’ Julian Kostov as her second in command.
Fight or Flight lands on Sky Cinema on February 28. For more, check out our guides to 2025 movie release dates and upcoming movies.