The Raid is about as close to a standard bearer as exists in the world of modern action cinema. Released in 2011, The Raid (or, as it was officially known in America, The Raid: Redemption), launched the careers of director Gareth Evans and star Iko Uwais, who played a rookie cop infiltrating a high rise building controlled by a drug kingpin. A sequel, The Raid 2, followed in 2014. Evans did contemplate making The Raid 3, but that sequel never came together. In the meantime, various Hollywood players have spent years trying to turn The Raid into an English-language remake.
Now that project has new momentum with Netflix getting involved with a Raid remake that none other than Michael Bay will produce. The director will be Patrick Hughes, who previously helmed the so-so The Expendables 3, but who did have a surprise action hit a few years ago with The Hitman’s Bodyguard.
Here’s how Deadline describes the plot of the Americanized version of The Raid:
Hollywood has been trying to reboot the title ever since and this looks like the one that will finally make it to production. This version is set in Philadelphia’s drug-infested “Badlands,” where an elite undercover DEA task force climbs a ladder of cartel informants to catch an elusive kingpin.
With the right cast and, more importantly, the right stunt team and action scenes, it’s easy to imagine an American version of The Raid becoming a huge hit on Netflix. If you spend any time over there, you know that its catalog is filled with gritty action movies, some of them pretty tepid, and a few legitimate diamonds in the rough. But outside of maybe Extraction, they don’t really have a signature action franchise to call their own. A really good version of The Raid could be Netflix’s calling card in that realm for years to come.
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