Paramount Preempts Chris McCoy’s Thriller Spec ‘Hit The Gas’; Neal Moritz To Produce

EXCLUSIVE: Paramount Pictures has preemptively purchased Hit the Gas, a spec script from Chris McCoy for Neal Moritz to produce.

Described as a propulsive thriller, the film’s logline is under wraps. Tania Landau will oversee for Moritz’s Original Film, with Vanessa Joyce overseeing for Paramount. We’re told the script when out last week to studio-based producers, with no attachments. Moritz immediately sparked to the material and got the studio to preempt the script in 24 hours.

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A celebrated author named to the Black List of the year’s best unproduced screenplays three times, with Get Back, Good Looking and Good Kids, McCoy wound up directing the latter dramedy starring Nicholas Braun and Zoey Deutch. He’s written for Paramount, Marvel, Disney, Amazon, DreamWorks and Fox and seen his work as an author appear in both The Believer and McSweeney’s. Most recently, McCoy wrote Beast Leave for Anonymous Content and Paramount Television, with David Slade directing.

Known for his work on the Fast & Furious and Sonic the Hedgehog franchises, among other tentpoles, Moritz’s upcoming slate at Original Film also includes Sonic the Hedgehog 3, J.J. Perry’s action adventure pic Afterburn starring Dave Bautista and Samuel L. Jackson, and a Cruel Intentions series for Prime Video, among many other projects.

McCoy is repped by UTA, Gotham Group and Hansen, Jacobsen, Teller.

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