'Kill' Director Nikhil Bhat To Helm Jamie Foxx's Hostage Actioner 'Deadlocked'

Filmmaker Nikhil Nagesh Bhat, who earned global acclaim for his brutal action spectacle Kill, has officially come on board to direct Deadlocked, an upcoming action-thriller starring Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx.

First reported by Deadline, the feature will stream globally on Prime Video. The narrative centers on a grieving former Marine serving jury duty who is forced back into action when the "trial of the century" devolves into a high-stakes hostage crisis after the defendant’s daughter seizes the courthouse to break her father out.

Distributed globally by Amazon MGM Studios, Deadlocked is scripted by Eric Scot Anderson (The Black Fox) and Matt Takejiro Bosack (NCIS: Hawai’i).

The film is produced by Brian Kavanaugh-Jones and Fred Berger for Range Media Partners, alongside Dave Caplan for C2 Motion Picture Group—the banners behind horror hits Longlegs and The Monkey—with Foxx also producing via Foxxhole Productions. AJ Bourscheid, Liz Destro, Paul Currie, and Corinne Foxx serve as executive producers.

Foxx recently headlined the 2025 Netflix action-comedy Back in Action alongside Cameron Diaz, which registered the streamer's biggest English-language feature debut since 2022 with 46.8 million views in its opening weekend. He next stars in Netflix’s Olympic boxing drama Fight for ’84.

Bhat burst onto the international stage with Kill, backed by Dharma Productions and Sikhya Entertainment, starring Lakshya, Raghav Juyal, Ashish Vidyarthi, Harsh Chhaya, and Tanya Maniktala. Kill premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 7 September 2023, where it was first runner-up for the People's Choice Award: Midnight Madness.

The feature was also screened at the Tribeca Film Festival in June 2024, followed by a grand theatrical debut in India in July, where it opened to rave reviews. Bhat’s directorial credits also include the 2023 survival thriller Apurva, starring Tara Sutaria.