Some people may have been worried about Aaron Paul’s big-screen acting career after Need For Speed—as if he’d be trapped in a metaphorical pit of bad movies, with only sporadic offerings of Ben & Jerry’s to look forward to—but it seems those concerns were for nothing. Paul’s going to work with Helen Mirren and Colin Firth next, which is a considerable step up from a movie based on a video game.
This comes via The Hollywood Reporter, which says that Paul and Mirren will be joining Firth in Eye In The Sky, a movie about drone-based warfare. Mirren is signed on to play Colonel Michelle Madden, the head of a secret military drone operation, with Paul as one of her pilots. The movie focuses on one particular mission to blow up a cell of suicide bombers, but it quickly turns into a high-stakes debate on the ethics of using drones after Mirren discovers there’s a 9-year-old girl among the terrorists. Throw in a couple more controversial topics and this could be a Kathryn Bigelow movie—but no, it’s actually being directed by Ender’s Game’s Gavin Hood.
We still don’t know who Colin Firth will be playing in Eye In The Sky, which suggests there could be another twist somewhere along the way. Maybe he’ll play one of the terrorists? After all, you’d need a heart of stone to bomb Mr. Darcy. Or maybe he’ll provide the voice of the drone, which will achieve sentience at some point and decide that war is an illogical pursuit. Or, and bear with us here, maybe he’ll play a British military official. Wouldn’t that be crazy?