Daily Times

Chris Hemsworth, Miles Teller, and Jurnee Smollett have been signed on by streaming giant Netflix for its upcoming film, Spiderhead, based on a short story by George Saunders.

Joseph Kosinski is directing the feature film, which marks the filmmaker’s reunion with Teller after Top Gun Maverick, headlined by Tom Cruise.

While Hemsworth is coming off the success of Extraction, his last Netflix project, Smollett is best known for the series Underground and big-screen outing as Black Canary in DC’s Harley Quinn: Birds Of Prey. Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, writing partners on Zombieland and Deadpool, have penned the script, according to Deadline.

hett Reese and Paul Wernick, writing partners on Zombieland and Deadpool, have penned the script, according to Deadline

Spiderhead is set in the near future, when convicts are offered the chance to volunteer as medical subjects in hopes of shortening their sentences. The focus is on two prisoners who become the test patients for emotion-altering drugs that force the prisoners to grapple with their pasts in a facility run by a brilliant visionary, who supervises the programme.

Saunders’ short story was first published in The New Yorker in 2010 and later collected in his bestselling anthology, Tenth Of December.

Spiderhead will be produced by Eric Newman for Screen Arcade through the producer’s first-look deal at Netflix, along with Hemsworth; Oren Katzeff and Geneva Wasserman for The New Yorker Studios; Reese & Wernick, Tommy Harper and Jeremy Steckler.