How American Assassin took a long, twisting path to film, and why its producers hope it will spawn a Mitch Rapp franchise
Movie based on one of late author Vince Flynn’s 13 novels featuring patriotic terrorism fighter Mitch Rapp stars The Maze Runner’s Dylan O’Brien and Michael Keaton
After twists and turns worthy of the very spy series it sprang from, a movie featuring the indomitable fictional terrorism fighter Mitch Rapp is about to hit cinema screens in the United States – four years after his creator, author Vince Flynn, died from prostate cancer.
American Assassin, the first movie based on a Flynn bestseller, premieres in the US on September 15. It features Dylan O’Brien ( The Maze Runner ) as Rapp and Michael Keaton as his weathered mentor, Stan Hurley, on a mission to avert nuclear war in the Middle East.
Getting Rapp to the big screen has been a decade-long odyssey, says American Assassin producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, a fan of the series who got to know Flynn before his death in 2013.
“When Vince died we redoubled our efforts to get this made. I owed him that,” said di Bonaventura, who produced the Transformers movies.
Flynn, a native of St. Paul, in the US state of Minnesota, wrote 14 political thrillers, starting with his self-published Term Limits in 1997, and featured his CIA counterterrorism operative Rapp in 13. His books have sold nearly 20 million copies in the US and millions more worldwide, and include former US presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush among fans.