‘Walking Dead’ Star Steven Yeun Set For Indie Thriller ‘Mayhem’
On The Walking Dead, an actor never knows when it’s going to be his last week on set. It sure looked like Glenn Rhee (played by Steven Yeun) was out of the picture when he was covered by an entire horde of zombies in the most recent season, but then he wasn’t, somehow. But he could’ve been! And in that moment, Yeun (probably) realized just how precarious his spot on the cult-hit show really was, liable to evaporate with a few keystrokes out of the writers’ room. He began to make plans to ensure that he’d be secure in the event of a Walking Dead-less future, and today, those plans have solidified into a new movie role for the in-demand actor.
A new item from The Hollywood Reporter announces that along with model Samara Weaving, Yeun has signed on for the leading role in Mayhem, a new action indie from director Joe Lynch. (No relation to David, don’t worry, we checked.) As his follow-up to 2014’s Salma Hayek vehicle Everly, Lynch will direct them in a thriller about a virus capable of removing all inhibitions from those affected and compelling them to act on their wildest impulses. Yeun plays Derek Sanders, a corporate lawyer who comes down with a bad case of acting-real-crazyitis on the very day he’s fired after being framed by a coworker. As THR so tidily describes it, “Trapped in the quarantined building, our hero is forced to fight tooth and nail for not only his job, but also his life.”
How Weaving factors into this corporate-law nightmare scenario has yet to be clarified, but the smart money says she will cast many helpless yet lustful glances in many different directions. This movie will live and die on the competence of its fight choreography — no plot summary can really provide a solid impression of the project — but in the best case, it’ll end up somewhere around the church-set fight scene in Kingsman, extended to 90 minutes.