Idris Elba will officially be switching from hero to villain soon.
Variety reports the Thor: Ragnarok actor is in "final negotiations" to portray the villain in the Fast & Furious spinoff film, Hobbs and Shaw, starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Jason Statham. The Rock also confirmed the news on Twitter.
The Rock and Statham will be reprising their roles as special agent Luke Hobbs and the mercenary, Deckard Shaw, respectively. Although they're often at odds in the Fast & Furious franchise, this film will see the two teaming up—likely to defeat a common enemy a.k.a. Idris' character.
This won't be the first time Elba played a villain though. He played Krall in Star Trek Beyond and voiced Shere Khan in 2016's The Jungle Book. But Elba will be fresh off of his longtime role of the heroic Heimdall in the Thor trilogy and Avengers: Infinity War, where he met an untimely fate at the hands of Thanos. Other than that, Elba has been pretty busy though.
Earlier this year, he made a directorial debut with Yardie, debuted a comedy series loosely based on his life, In The Long Run, and is slated to play a nanny in Netflix's Turn Up Charlie. He'll also be taking up the major task of directing, scoring, and starring in a modern take of The Hunchback of Notre Dame for the streaming platform. Elba isn't the only one with something to celebrate this year though. The Rock's film, Rampage, will be the only film released by a major studio this month that is based on original source material, per Los Angeles Times.
"There are 10 sequels on the left and right of us in our release window, which is really sobering in a way," Skyscraper producer Beau Flynn told the site. "It’s so important to us to make original movies and try to create something different. And a huge part of why we get to do that is Dwayne Johnson."
As for Hobbs and Shaw, Deadpool 2's director David Leitch is slated to be behind the vision for this film while longtime Fast & Furious scribe Chris Morgan wrote the script.
Hobbs and Shaw is slated to arrive in theaters on July 26, 2019.
