Looks like there will be some onscreen adult supervision in Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver—Deadline reports that established grown-up Jamie Foxx is set to play a crime boss who’s probably the villain of the film and not, say, puberty. Wright is writing and directing the film, which will star Ansel Elgort (The Fault In Our Stars) as a baby-faced getaway driver who “relies on the beat of his personal soundtrack.”
Our initial impression of the film’s premise was that it sounded like some kind of Kidz Bop version of Drive, but Wright could just be steering into the skid. The film is listed under the action, comedy, and crime genres on IMDb, so maybe the writer-director is sending up such car-and-crime dramas as Bullitt or The French Connection. He could also be working on a long overdue homage to Gone In 60 Seconds or License To Drive.
Baby Driver also recently cast Cinderella’s Lily James as the likely love in Elgort’s life that’s endangered by his fancy driving and curfew-breaking ways, so Foxx is needed to complete the lover-driver-kingpin triangle that’s at the heart of the film. If Wright really wants to sweeten the deal, he could offer to let Foxx sing some of the songs streaming on Baby Driver’s iPhone.