J.J. Abrams’ Hot Wheels Movie ‘Emotional and Grounded and Gritty’

The upcoming Hot Wheels movie from J.J. Abrams has a surprising angle.

During a visit to the Mattel Design Center by The New Yorker, director J.J. Abrams revealed some details in a short video about the upcoming Hot Wheels movie. “For a long time, we were talking to Mattel about Hot Wheels, and we couldn’t quite find the thing that clicked, that made it worthy of what Hot Wheels — that title— deserved,” he explained. “Then we came up with something… emotional and grounded and gritty.”

The project recently tapped Dalton Leeb and Nicholas Jacobson-Larson to pen the script for Warner Bros., but a Hot Wheels movie has been in the works for, well.. a long time. Fast and Furious director Justin Lin was originally set to bring the ever-popular Mattel toy franchise to the big screen, but this approach was later canned. Eventually, Star Wars: The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams signed on for the ambitious project, which has been described as a “high throttle actioner”. Expect plenty of classic Hot Wheels and some awesome, high-octane stunts.

“Hot Wheels has been igniting the challenger spirit in auto enthusiasts for generations,” said Mattel Films executive producer Robbie Brenner. “Fans of all ages are now in for the ride of their lives with the incredible talent of J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot joining us alongside Warner Bros. Pictures to transform Hot Wheels’ legendary IP into a thrilling story for the big screen.”

We’ve not heard much about the Hot Wheels movie since it was announced in April last year. Now, it looks as though Abrams and his team have been hard at work finding the right angle for the upcoming action flick. I don’t think anyone expected “gritty” to be part of that.

Over the years, numerous different versions of the Hot Wheels movie have been in and out of production. McG was originally attached to direct the film for Columbia back in 2003 before it eventually went over to Warner Bros. a few years later. Legendary took over the property in 2011 with Simon Crane signing on to direct by 2013. Obviously, none of this panned out, so we’ll have to wait and see whether Abrams’ take on the classic toy line edges up to the starting line.

Still, Mattel has plenty of other properties heading to the big screen. Barbie opens in theaters on July 21 and there are even plans for a Barney movie, too.

Want to read more about Mattel? Check out why Barbie has been banned in Vietnam as well as the Barbenheimer double feature everyone wants to see.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.