Jurnee Smollett to star in high-octane action movie Fuel

Jurnee Smollett and her Lovecraft Country showrunner Misha Green are working on an action movie named Fuel.

The Birds of Prey star was recently nominated for Critics' Choice and Screen Actors Guild awards for her starring role as Letitia Lewis in the supernatural horror series, which was helmed by Green, who had previously worked with Smollett on the TV show Underground.

It seems Smollett and Green are keen to collaborate with each other again as they have been pitching a star vehicle for the former child actress, and according to Deadline, Amazon Studios officials are in negotiations with them about the idea.

Fuel is said to be an action-packed female empowerment story that will subvert the relationship between cars and masculinity. Smollett's heroine is a getaway driver who is coerced into working for a criminal and breaking all the rules she set out for herself.

Smollett, 34, will produce the project alongside Green as well as Kat Wood, who will write the script.

It is likely Fuel will go into production after Green makes her directorial debut with the Tomb Raider sequel, starring Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft. She has also written that screenplay.

Green, who has been nominated for a number of awards for Lovecraft Country this season, was named on the Time100 Next list last month, and Smollett wrote the tribute for Time magazine.

"I've been fortunate to collaborate with her on both of the TV shows she's created," she wrote. "Misha's projects are birthed from a source deep within her; thus she fights tooth and nail to make sure no one tames her vision. As her collaborators, we are invited to be as creative and as bold as possible.

"The way she's used the art of storytelling to illuminate the humanity of Black folks has been nothing less than magical. I know she has decades' worth of disruptive magic in front of her."