Director Mohamed Diab got started working on dramas, making his feature debut with the 2010 film Cairo 678, about “three women and their search for justice from the daily plight of sexual harassment in Egypt.” That was followed by the 2016 film Clash, which takes place entirely inside a police van and shows what happens when “a number of detainees from different political and social backgrounds are brought together by fate”. In 2021, he made Amira, which showed that a “girl’s world is turned upside down when she learns the man she grew up idolizing is not her real father.” Then he shifted gears, directing four of the six episodes that made up the Marvel / Disney+ series Moon Knight. And now Deadline reports that Diab has signed on to direct a sci-fi thriller called Leap.
Scripted by Source Code writer Ben Ripley and produced by The Picture Company, Leap is “a high concept action thriller with a grounded sci-fi idea at the center”. The story takes place aboard the Eurostar train which runs high-speed between London and Paris and follows a daring rescue mission to save one of the train’s passengers, who is trapped onboard in a never-ending time loop.
That synopsis makes it sound like Ripley is returning to some Source Code concepts with this story.
Leap is being produced by Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman for The Picture Company. Studiocanal recently acquired a minority stake in The Picture Company, so Ron Halpern and Shanna Eddy will be overseeing the project for Studiocanal.
I haven’t seen Diab’s other movies, but I have watched Moon Knight… and I can’t say I was very impressed with that show. It was one of the rare Marvel Cinematic Universe projects that I couldn’t really get into. But that had more to do with the story and its structure than the work the directors did on it. So if Diab wants to venture into Source Code territory, I’ll gladly check it out. I’m a fan of Source Code.
How does Leap sound to you? Are you interested in seeing how Mohamed Diab is going to bring this concept to the screen? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
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