EXCLUSIVE: After weighing several options, Michael Bay has set his next movie, coming on to direct the action thriller Ambulance with Jake Gyllenhaal in negotiations to star. Bay is fast-tracking the project and is talking to other actors to join Gyllenhaal with plans to shoot top of January. No distribution deal has closed yet, but sources say Universal Pictures is finalizing a deal to land distribution rights.

Chris Fedak penned the original script, which is based on the original Danish Film Ambulancen produced by Nordisk Film Productions. James Vanderbilt, Bradley Fischer and Will Sherak are producing. The logline is being kept under wraps, but insiders say the film is the vein of the great action thrillers of the ’90s like Speed and Bay’s Bad Boys. The script has been highly coveted for years but never able to lock down a director before Bay got his hands on it and instantly fell in love.

This production itself will already be quite the feat to undertake, but if there is anyone that can tackle the challenge it’s the veteran director who has made a career of taking on tough productions. Bay already has had a busy 2020 as a producer on the STX thriller Songbird, a pioneering film that became of the first productions to shoot during the COVID-19 pandemic. Directed by Adam Mason and starring K.J. Apa, the film shoot seemed impossible to get done as COVID cases began to rise in the United States, but Bay’s persistence as a producer to make sure they got it down while staying safe played a major role in setting the stage for other productions to get underway going forward.

Bay most recently directed the Netflix action pic 6 Underground, starring Ryan Reynolds, and also is developing the Sony pic Black 5. He is repped by WME and Range Media Partners.

Gyllenhaal also has stayed busy setting up his future slate, starting with thriller The Guilty, which reteams him with his Southpaw director Antoine Fuqua and currently is filming in Los Angeles.

He also recently signed on to star in the HBO series The Son with his Prisoners helmer Denis VIlleneuve directing. He also was nominated for a Tony Award for acting in the play Sea Wall/A Life and also was nominated for a Tony as a producer of Slave Play.

Gyllenhaal is repped by WME.

Ambulance
Only In Theaters February 18
https://www.Ambulance.movie

Over one day across the streets of L.A., three lives will change forever.

In this breakneck thriller from director-producer Michael Bay, decorated veteran Will Sharp (Emmy winner Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Candyman, The Matrix Resurrections), desperate for money to cover his wife’s medical bills, asks for help from the one person he knows he shouldn’t—his adoptive brother Danny (Oscar® nominee Jake Gyllenhaal, Zodiac, Spider-Man: Far From Home). A charismatic career criminal, Danny instead offers him a score: the biggest bank heist in Los Angeles history: $32 million. With his wife’s survival on the line, Will can’t say no.

But when their getaway goes spectacularly wrong, the desperate brothers hijack an ambulance with a wounded cop clinging to life and ace EMT Cam Thompson (Eiza González, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, Baby Driver) onboard. In a high-speed pursuit that never stops, Will and Danny must evade a massive, city-wide law enforcement response, keep their hostages alive, and somehow try not to kill each other, all while executing the most insane escape L.A. has ever seen.

Ambulance is produced by Michael Bay, p.g.a., Bradley J. Fischer, p.g.a. (Zodiac, Shutter Island) for New Republic Pictures, James Vanderbilt (Zodiac, 2022’s Scream) and William Sherak (Ready or Not, 2022’s Scream) for Project X, and Oscar® nominee Ian Bryce (Transformers franchise, Saving Private Ryan).

The screenplay is by Chris Fedak (Prodigal Son, Chuck), based on the original story and screenplay for the 2005 Danish thriller Ambulancen by Laurits Munch-Petersen and Lars Andreas Pedersen.