‘Kingdom’ Director Shinsuke Sato To Direct ‘Water Margin’ For Netflix; ‘Deepwater Horizon’ Scribe Matt Sand Penning Script

Justin Kroll
·2 min read
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EXCLUSIVE: After directing one of Japan’s biggest box-office hits of 2019, Kingdom Shinsuke Sato has found his first major domestic film as Netflix has set him to direct the action-adventure saga Water Margin. Matt Sand, who penned the Mark Wahlberg thriller Deepwater Horizon, is writing the script.

Eric Newman and Bryan Unkeless for Screen Arcade are producing. Scott Morgan for Screen Arcade is exec producing.

The film is a futuristic take on one of the great classical novels of Chinese literature, The Water Margin is an epic action-adventure saga filled with glory, romance, and intrigue. The story explores timely questions about loyalty, leadership, and our duty to take on society’s problems no matter the personal cost.

Sato has been on the radar of studio execs for some time after his critically acclaimed work on Bleach and Kingdom. While this marks Sato’s first major film for Netflix, he already had a strong partnership with the studio after working on the series Alice in Borderland which premieres on December 10th.

The Water Margin is the latest project for Newman and Unkeless at Netflix. Together they produced Bright starring Will Smith.

Under Screen Arcade’s first look they produced the recent Jamie Foxx hit action movie Project Power, and will produce the upcoming Escape from Spiderhead starring Chris Hemsworth, Miles Teller and Jurnee Smollet; and Bright 2.

Newman has an overall deal at Netflix and is EP, and served as showrunner on the hit series’ Narcos and Narcos: Mexico.

Sato is repped by WME and Grandview and Sand is repped by Verve, Circle of Confusion and Gang, Tyre and Ramer. Newman is CAA.

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