The Raid Reboot Director Confirms New Film Is a “Reimagining” of Original

Many action fans consider director Gareth Evans’ The Raid to be one of the best entries into the genre of the past decade, so when it was confirmed that The Hitman’s Bodyguard director Patrick Hughes was developing a new take on the source material, fans were conflicted about the film earning a remake. Even Hughes himself knows the power of the original, as he recently reiterated that his take on the material will surely be inspired by the 2012 film, while confirming that the project will be a reimagining as opposed to an attempt to directly recreate the experience. Hughes’ next film is The Man from Toronto, which hits Netflix on June 24th.

“It’s not a remake as such, it’s a reimagining and it’s taking what was so incredibly crazy with that hook. It’s a very nitty-gritty, real world in that. Stepping into the straight action-thriller, but it’s on that saga level and that’s a project that I’m really, really excited about,” Hughes recently expressed to ComicBook.com. “There’s not too much I’m allowed to say, but it is something where we’re really … I’m excited because I have come off a big run of doing action comedies and I love that genre and I’m certainly going to be working it again in the future, but for now, I’ve got two projects and the other’s a big action, sci-fi, horror, thriller, survival, epic movie. There are just a couple of different genres I want to step into for a while and then I’ll certainly be coming back to the action comedy because it is so much fun to work in, too.”

In addition to the confirmation of how the new film is a reimagining of the martial-arts epic, with Evans himself on board the project as an executive producer, fans should know that the project is in good hands. 

The new The Raid is said to take place in the “Badlands” area of Philadelphia and will follow “an elite undercover DEA task force climb a ladder of cartel informants to catch an elusive kingpin.”

In The Man from Toronto, “A case of mistaken identity arises after a screw-up sales consultant and the world’s deadliest assassin — known only as The Man from Toronto — run into each other at a holiday rental.”

Stay tuned for details on the new The Raid. The Man from Toronto lands on Netflix on June 24th.

Are you looking forward to the new The Raid? Let us know in the comments!