If you don’t know the name Victoria Mahoney, well that’s a damn shame but it’s about to change. Mahoney worked with JJ Abrams as second unit director on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, becoming the first woman of color in such a position for the blockbuster franchise. Now she’s on her way to tackling her first big studio gig as director, with Paramount’s action flick Kill Them All.
THR reports Mahoney is in talks to direct Kill Them All for Paramount, which is being described as “a love letter to ’90s action movies.” The film is an adaptation of Kyle Starks’ graphic novel about “a betrayed murderess on a revenge campaign and a hard-drinking former cop who team up to take down a crime lord. Their nemesis rules from atop a 15-story Miami high-rise, so the duo must go floor by floor cutting through assassins, murderers, Luchadore gang bosses, ex-boyfriends and office workers.”
Sounds a lot like The Raid, which is perfectly okay with me.
The script is by James Coyne, with veteran action screenwriters Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec (Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) on board as producers.
But this is about Mahoney, who made her solo directing debut with 2011’s semi-autobiographical indie Yelling to the Sky. From there, Mahoney worked on various unscripted shows before moving on to scripted drama, including Ava DuVernay’s Queen Sugar. It was DuVernay who suggested Mahoney to Abrams for The Rise of Skywalker. You can also find Mahoney acting in episodes of Seinfeld and Sliders, as well as 2001’s Legally Blonde. Up next for her is directing an episode of HBO series Lovecraft Country, as well as an adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s sci-fi novel Dawn as an Amazon series.