After wrangling Bad Boys For Life out of development and delivering a surprisingly fun third instalment of action madness, you might think that directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah might be tempted to make another high-octane pic. But while they are pondering a potential Boys follow-up, they're making plans for a smaller scale return to filmmaking in Belgium with Rebel.
The drama tells the story of Nassim, a 13-year-old Moroccan boy from Molenbeek, who is searching for an identity after his father’s death. While his mother Leila anxiously tries to keep him away from Karim, his older local gangster brother, Nassim needs to decide what the rest of his life will look like, even at this young age.
"Rebel is a true passion project,” Adil & Bilall say in a statement. "It is deeply personal for us to be able to tell this story about our generation, and those looking for identity. We’ve assembled a powerful creative team and are excited to finally bring it to the big screen." They co-wrote the screenplay with Jan Van Dyck and Kevin Meul.
There's no word yet on when they'll start shooting, but given that Europe has been opening up more and more, it could be this year.