Joe Carnahan and Mark Wahlberg Team for Netflix Action Thriller THE OPERATOR
Joe Carnahan is heading straight back into action at Netflix, and this time he’s bringing Mark Wahlberg along for what sounds like a nasty little game of survival.
Following the huge success of The Rip, Joe Carnahan has signed on to direct Netflix’s next action thriller, The Operator, with Mark Wahlberg set to star as a former elite operative who makes his living doing the CIA’s dirty work. It sounds like exactly the kind of hard-edged material that fits Carnahan’s style.
Written by Harrison Query, The Operator centers on an ex-Tier One Operator who works as one of the CIA’s invisible clean-up men, handling jobs that presumably aren’t meant to leave much of a paper trail.
Things get complicated when he’s given an assignment he definitely isn’t going to enjoy. His latest orders require him to get the target he hates most to safety. That mission quickly turns into a dangerous cat-and-mouse fight for survival.
That sounds like a good story for Carnahan and Wahlberg to play with. Put a highly trained operative in a situation where he has to protect someone he’d probably rather put through a wall, then send people after both of them. There’s plenty of room there for tension, action and some wonderfully hostile chemistry.
The project comes together while Carnahan is riding the success of The Rip, his Miami cop thriller starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Produced by Damon and Affleck’s Artists Equity, the movie pulled in more than 41 million views during its first three days on Netflix in January.
Those numbers gave Netflix its biggest movie opening since Happy Gilmore 2. Carnahan has spent a large part of his career making muscular crime movies and thrillers, including Narc, Smokin’ Aces, The Grey, and Copshop.
The Operator puts him right back in that wheelhouse, with Wahlberg playing the kind of capable, dangerous character who can carry this sort of movie.
Query will serve as an executive producer. His original The Operator spec script was sold to Netflix in December 2025 following a highly competitive bidding situation, and the writer has several other major projects moving forward.
Netflix recently acquired Query’s series The Murder of JonBenét Ramsey, while Netflix and A24 are preparing to begin production in January on his series Trigger Point, starring Joel Edgerton.
Carnahan knows how to make action feel rough and intense, and the central idea gives him more to work with than simply sending Wahlberg from one shootout to another.
Source: Deadline