EXCLUSIVE: Up-and-comers Arlan Ruf and Ellis Hobbs IV will round out the cast of Way of the Warrior Kid, Apple Original Films’ youth empowerment tale, based on the novel by Jocko Willink.
The project marks the first big film for both, who alongside Jude Hill, Levi McConaughey and Ava Torres, play a couple of the titular warrior kids. As previously announced, Chris Pratt and Linda Cardellini also star in the pic from Skydance Media.
Way of the Warrior Kid follows a self-doubting boy (Hill) who gets bullied and is hard-pressed to complete a single pull-up. That’s until his uncle Jake (Pratt), an elite Navy SEAL, is injured on a mission and moves in with his sister (Cardellini) for rehab. When he discovers his 13-year-old nephew, Marc, is struggling academically, socially and physically, Jake takes on a new mission: using his SEAL Team training over three months of summer to help the youth find his inner warrior.
McG directs from a script by Will Staples. Hailing from a first-look partnership between Apple and Skydance, the film’s producers include Skydance’s David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Don Granger, as well as McG and Mary Viola for Wonderland Sound and Pratt for Indivisible Productions. Additional producers include Ben Everard for Everard Entertainment and Willink.
11-year-old Ruf began his acting career quite by accident when his travel baseball coach insisted he play the role of the disgruntled Halloween Clown in the viral short film Trick or Treat. The sixth grader is repped by AFA Prime Talent and Paradigm.
Recently, Hobbs has been seen in Lee Daniels’ Netflix exorcism pic The Deliverance, as well as Angel Studios’ Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot. Also seen on Paramount+’s The Game, The CW’s Legacies, and Showtime’s The First Lady opposite Viola Davis, he is repped by Play Management and Forward Talent.
