Travis Kelce may have found his leading role. The Kansas City Chiefs tight end is in negotiations to star in Lionsgate’s action-comedy “Loose Cannons.” “John Wick” director Chad Stahelski is producing through his 87Eleven Entertainment company, along with Jason Spitz and Alex Young. Tim Dowling is writing the script.
Production is expected to take a while before kickoff as Kelce will be busy with the NFL season starting in two weeks.
Kelce, who played 12 seasons in the NFL, has recently branched out into Hollywood, pioneering the popular podcast “New Heights,” which he co-hosts with recently retired Philadelphia Eagles player Jason Kelce. But Travis has catapulted his celebrity status to new heights over the past year thanks to his romantic relationship with Taylor Swift. The athlete will host the game show “Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity?” this fall, and he also stars as a mysterious supporting character in the Ryan Murphy FX series “Grotesquerie,” which is scheduled to premiere Sept. 25.
“Loose Cannons” was also the title of a 1990 crime movie starring Gene Hackman and Dan Aykroyd. Directed by Bob Clark, the movie followed a cop who teams up with a detective with multiple personality disorder to track down a lost-in-history Nazi sex tape featuring Adolf Hitler. It’s a decent premise, but the movie was a box office flop at the time. Kelsey’s debut feature, despite the same title, isn’t a remake of that TriStar production, so that’s okay. Instead, this new film focuses on two insane cops who pair up with each other to try to set each other straight.
Dowling, a screenwriter, is a veteran of the comedy genre, having worked on “Role Models,” “Office Christmas Party” and the Adam Sandler-starring “Just Go With It” and “Pixels,” while Stahelski worked with Lionsgate on all four “John Wick” films and is currently attached to direct the studio’s “Highlander” remake.
