'Kill Them All' Graphic Novel Adaptation Lands In The Hands Of 'Star Wars' Second Unit Director Victoria Mahoney
Filmmaker Victoria Mahoney made history as the second unity director on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, becoming the first person of color to take on such a key role in the sci-fi saga. Now she's stepping up to helm an entire production with Paramount Pictures. Mahoney is in talks to direct Kill Them All, an adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name by Kyle Starks, described as a love letter to the action movies of the 1990s.
The Hollywood Reporter has the news on Victoria Mahoney directing the Kill Them All movie. Mahoney actually began her career as an actress with bit parts in Seinfeld and Legally Blonde. She changed course in 2011 when she directed an indie called Yelling at the Sky, a semi-autobiographical movie about a 17-year old girl left to fend for herself in a dangerous neighborhood. Since then, she's directed episodes of shows like Power, Grey's Anatomy, and Patty Jenkins' miniseries I Am the Night, and she also worked on Amazon's upcoming series Dawn with Ava DuVernay and HBO's Lovecraft Country for Jordan Peele and J.J. Abrams. But her highest profile gig was on Star Wars, and being a second unit director on a production of that size certainly proves that she can handle a blockbuster of her own.
If you've never heard of Kill Them All, here's the official synopsis for the graphic novel:
A betrayed murderess wants revenge. A hard drinking former cop wants his job back. For either to get what they want, they're going to have to fight their way through fifteen flights of criminals, assassins, drug lords, murderers, yup, even accountants, and... KILL. THEM. ALL.
The graphic novel initially began as a project on Kickstarter, but Oni Press, publishers of the comics that inspired Scott Pilgrim vs the World, ended up picking it up for publication. Now it's becoming a movie that will be produced by Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec, writers and producers of of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and the most recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. The script comes from James Coyne, who appears to only have two feature film writing credits under his belt: an action thriller called Puncture starring Cung Le and Dolph Lundgren and something called Vikingdom.
This movie sounds like it could be a big breakthrough for Mahoney as a filmmaker, and even though Coyne doesn't have much inspiring feature film experience under his belt, perhaps he's tapped into the '90s action style that has gotten the graphic novel some praise. Just as the sci-fi fans have an affinity for the movies of the 1980s, so do action fans when it comes to some of the blockbusters of the 1990s. If Kill Them All can capture that same vibe, it should be a fun ride.