David Leitch

The real-impact school

David Leitch spent more than a decade taking hits before the industry let him deliver them behind the camera. He doubled for Brad Pitt in five films and risked his neck on sets that now look like technical prehistory. That period taught him that Hollywood action cinema urgently needed an overhaul.

He founded 87eleven Action Design with Chad Stahelski. It wasn't a simple stunt agency but a choreography lab. They wanted fight scenes that looked good and kept viewers from getting lost in chaotic editing. So they began training actors to perform their own stunt sequences.

Risk was his currency.

In 2014, John Wick arrived. The film cost just 20 million dollars and grossed more than 80 worldwide. Its success came from simplicity and choreographed violence reminiscent of Korean cinema. But Leitch didn't stick around for the sequels to the man in the black suit.

He preferred to try his luck solo with Atomic Blonde in 2017. There he showed he could handle bigger budgets and neon aesthetics without losing the grit of combat. The staircase sequence, a fake one-take shot of nearly ten minutes, became the technical standard for the genre in that decade.

The business of getting hit

In 2018, he took the helm of Deadpool 2. It was his definitive entry into major studio filmmaking. Managing a budget of 110 million dollars didn't cost him his grip on physical action. The gamble paid off because the film surpassed 780 million dollars in global box office.

The comedy became just as important as the kicks.

In 2019, he directed Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. The project moved him away from the gritty realism of his early work and toward digital spectacle. But even in a franchise so saturated with visual effects, Leitch insisted on filming real chases on the streets of Glasgow. Because audiences can tell when a car really flies.

In 2022, he reunited with Brad Pitt on Bullet Train. This time Pitt was the lead and Leitch was the boss. The film grossed 239 million dollars. It did so by locking an ensemble cast inside a high-speed train, where the tight space dictated how every impact was shot.

In 2024, he released The Specialist. The project worked as a love letter to his former profession. The film set a Guinness record for car rolls (exactly eight and a half) performed by stunt performer Logan Holladay.

The production company he founded with his wife Kelly McCormick, 87North Productions, signed an exclusive deal with Universal Pictures. In 2024, its headquarters in Hollywood set aside space designed for training actors and planning stunt sequences before the cameras roll. The insurance for The Specialist was one of the largest budget items of his career.