The Quanaissance continues! Ever since Ke Huy Quan made his Oscar winning Hollywood comeback in The Daniels' Everything Everywhere All At Once in 2022, the phone's been ringing off the hook for the former Goonies and Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom child star. And after getting a tantalising glimpse at Quan's first true action leading role in upcoming 87North joint Love Hurts just last week, the in-demand actor has found his next star vehicle. Per THR's reporting, Quan has closed a deal to lead Fairytale In New York, an original action thriller from Sisu director Jelmari Hellander.
For those unfamiliar with Hellander's last movie (and if you're one of 'em, where have you been?!), Sisu is a 90-minute exercise in insane, Looney Tunes level violence that sees a lone Finnish war veteran variously stabbing, shooting, exploding, and otherwise setting alight/wrecking Nazis. It's intense, action-packed, and ludicrously entertaining. And by the sounds of it, Fairytale In New York will see Quan get his own man-on-a-mission moment — albeit with less Nazi skull-crushing, sadly. Instead, as THR detail, this one will have Quan playing a New York cabbie whose yuletide journey home to see his estranged son is thrown a curveball after a run-in with a gang of thugs sets him on a relentless path to retrieve his kid's priceless Christmas gift. Forget Jingle All The Way, this sounds more like Jingle All The Slay, eh? Eh? Eh?
“As soon as we watched Sisu, we knew Jalmari was a filmmaker we wanted to be in business with again,” said Adam Fogelson, Lionsgate Motion Picture Group's chair, in a statement. “Fairytale in New York is a wildly entertaining, thrill ride of an action film and an emotionally resonant story about family. And every once in a while, an actor hits their prime. Ke Huy Quan is having that moment right now and his deep experience crafting action in front of and behind the camera as well as his exceptional likability make him the perfect actor for this project.”
We don't know exactly when Fairytale In New York is set to hit cinemas just yet, or indeed who else will be in it. But with Quan in front of the camera, Hellander behind it, and a killer hook already in place, it looks like Christmas has come early for genre lovers. Unless you misread the title and thought we were about to get Ke Huy Quan playing Shane McGowan in a Pogues biopic, in which case... well, that's entirely on you, we're afraid.