Tom Holland is lining up an action thriller of his own. Sony Pictures has bought Penthouse, an original idea from Drew Pearce, the screenwriter behind The Fall Guy and Hobbs & Shaw, and the project was put together specifically with Holland in the lead.
The studio made a pre-emptive move on the project earlier this week, grabbing it before it could hit the wider market. Pearce is writing the script, and the plot is being kept quiet for now beyond the fact that it is a thriller.
Penthouse Has A Strong Team Behind It
Holland is producing through Billy17, the company he runs with his brother Harry Holland and Will South. The three of them are said to have played an instrumental role in developing the film with Pearce, so this is very much Holland's project from the start.
Pearce is producing too, through his Point of No Return banner, and Ian Fisher is on board as an executive producer. Billy17 already has a producing deal in place with Sony, which explains why the studio was first in line.
A director has not been named. Some reports have suggested Pearce could step behind the camera, but nothing official has been said, so that remains unconfirmed for now.
Drew Pearce's Action Resume
Action fans will know Pearce's work even if they do not know the name. He wrote The Fall Guy for director David Leitch, which turned Ryan Gosling into a battered stuntman caught up in a missing persons case on a film set. He also co-wrote Hobbs & Shaw for Leitch, the Fast & Furious spinoff that teamed Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham against Idris Elba's cybernetically enhanced villain.
Before that, Pearce co-wrote Iron Man 3 with Shane Black, and he made his feature directing debut with Hotel Artemis, a near-future crime thriller about a members-only hospital for criminals, starring Jodie Foster, Sterling K. Brown, Dave Bautista and Jeff Goldblum. That film's single-location setup is worth remembering, because a thriller called Penthouse sounds like it could be heading for similar territory.
Pearce also has The Thomas Crown Affair on the way, with Michael B. Jordan directing and starring. That heist remake is set for March 2027.
Tom Holland's Next Chapter
This is a good moment for Holland to try something new. Spider-Man: Brand New Day passed $2 billion worldwide, and he also appeared in Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, so he has plenty of leverage to chase the kinds of roles he wants.
Holland has dipped into darker material before with Cherry and The Devil All the Time, and he did plenty of running and jumping in Uncharted, but a grounded thriller written by someone with Pearce's action background would be a fresh fit. If Penthouse leans into the kind of physical, stunt-driven filmmaking seen in The Fall Guy, it could give him a showcase that has nothing to do with web-slinging.
He also has a Fred Astaire biopic lined up at Sony with Margaret Qualley, Sabrina Carpenter and Talia Ryder, so his next few years are shaping up to be a mix of musical drama and action.
When Could Penthouse Happen?
There is no release date or production start yet. With the script in progress and no director confirmed, the next updates to watch for will be a filmmaker joining the project and the rest of the cast coming together around Holland.
Given how quickly Sony moved to lock the project up, it would not be surprising to see the studio push to get it going sooner rather than later, especially once Holland's schedule clears.
Would you watch Tom Holland in a contained action thriller from the writer of The Fall Guy?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.