The Arena has preemptively acquired and will finance and produce a Keanu Reeves-led adaptation of Oliver Lowe’s upcoming novel “Kill Current: A Jon Hendricks Thriller,” the company announced Wednesday.
Reeves will also produce with Alexandra Grant for Two Dragonflies. Molly Stern and Zando will executive produce.
“Kill Current” is the first novel in Lowe’s forthcoming thriller series centering on Jon Hendricks, a burned-out CIA officer who is pulled back in to avenge the protégé he trained and lost. This first novel in a planned Jon Hendrick’s thriller series offers a globe-spanning, edge-of-your-seat action thriller about shifting alliances and the race for the world’s most precious and valuable assets.
The novel will be published by Zando in May of 2027.
“This project further underlines our focus on launching high-concept IP for global audiences across different media,” Erik Feig, CEO of The Arena, said in a statement. “Keanu Reeves is a singular talent and synonymous with the kind of intelligent action franchises we are aiming to make. We are thrilled to work with him and Alexandra Grant and equally thrilled that Matt Reilly and Melissa Goodall were able to swoop in and get this!”
“Oliver Lowe’s masterful story, the first in his upcoming Jon Hendricks series, is poised to reinvent the geopolitical thriller for the modern era,” Molly Stern, CEO and founder of Zando, added. “Kill Current is rooted in the issues shaping today’s world—semi-conductors, global supply chains, technological and information warfare. It delivers the fast-paced, globe-trotting read and complex, intriguing characters that thriller fans of any era crave.”
“Taking ‘Kill Current’ from publishing into film form, and aligning with The Arena, Oliver Lowe, and Zando is the kind of creative work Keanu and I have set up Two Dragonflies to do,” Alexandra Grant, co-founder of the new production company, added.
“I’m excited and grateful for the opportunity to develop the character Jon Hendricks with these wonderful collaborators and that this is the project that launches Two Dragonflies which I share with my partner, Alexandra Grant,” Reeves added.
Reeves and Grant founded Two Dragonflies to tell stories across art, film, TV, animation, comic books, games, and literature. Established in 2026, Two Dragonflies partners with storytellers and supports the creation of narratives across different media, cultures and national boundaries.
Oliver Lowe (a pen name for writer Casey Stegman) lives in North Carolina. His fiction has been published by Tough, Shotgun Honey, Dark Yonder, Cowboy Jamboree, Bristol Noir, and Punk Noir Magazine. Most recently, a story of his was included in “The Best Mystery Stories of the Year,” guest edited by John Grisham.
Reeves is is repped by WME and Ziffren Brittenham.
Deadline first reported the news.
