Jason Statham’s Next Action Movie Changes Two Parts Of The Original Book For The Better

Warning: Potential spoilers for A Working Man below!Jason Statham’s A Working Man is based on the novel Levon’s Trade, and the trailer confirms the adaptation is making two major changes. There are few pleasures in life as straightforward as a Jason Statham action movie, with the star being on a current run of hits. The trailer for A Working Man makes it look like he’s onto another winner, as he reunites with his Beekeeper helmer David Ayer. The movie casts Statham as Levon Cade, a former soldier tasked by his boss (Michael Peña) with rescuing his daughter from human traffickers.

Naturally, a lot of kicking, punching, and shooting is involved in this task. A Working Man adapts Chuck Dixon’s Levon Cade book series, which is up to 11 entries as of 2025. That means A Working Man could become another Jason Statham franchise, with the trailer revealing it has significantly dialed up the action sequences and body count from the original book. While Statham’s adaptation looks broadly faithful, there are notable tweaks too, like making Cade less of a loner.

A Working Man Wisely Makes Levon’s Mission More Personal Than The Novel

Levon has no connection to the kidnapping victim in Levon’s Trade

Just like Dixon’s novel, A Working Man sees Statham’s Levon working in construction when he’s approached by his boss to find his missing daughter, Jenny (Arianna Rivas). Unlike the book, the movie reveals Levon actually has a friendship with both Peña’s character and Jenny. In Levon’s Trade, Cade never met Jenny and only undertakes the job with the promise of a $50,000 payday at the end.

The novel plays out like a hard-edged 1970s pulp thriller, but A Working Man is adapting the material to Statham’s screen persona. That means the action and fights play a bigger part, and that he’s a (slightly) warmer character. This is a smart choice, as making Levon and Jenny friends gives his mission a more personal edge than the novel did. In the book, Cade takes the gig so he can afford to fight for custody of his daughter Merry, as the parents of his late wife are trying to take her away from him.

A Working Man’s script was penned by Sylvester Stallone, who originally intended to make a TV series from the Levon Cade books.

The trailer also makes it appear Jenny will have a much larger role. After she’s kidnapped during the opening passages of Levon’s Trade, she is almost entirely absent until her ultimate fate is revealed towards the end of the book. In the preview, there are several shots of Jenny being held captive and trying to escape,

A Working Man Cuts Out The Custody Subplot Involving Levon’s Daughter Merry

Merry is Levon’s entire motivation in the novel

Looking at the trailer, it would appear that Levon is a loner despite having a surrogate family of sorts. One character who is absent from the trailer is Merry Cade, Levon’s young daughter who is a major character in the books. In Levon’s Trade, Cade’s sole motivation is to earn the money so he can fight for Merry’s custody against her grandparents. This forms a major subplot in the first book, but while A Working Man’s credits list actress Isla Gie as playing Merry, the trailer doesn’t show her at all.

If A Working Man stays true to the novel, then Levon will be dropping Merry off at the home of his blind mentor, Gunny Leffertz…

This suggests the custody storyline has been cut entirely or at the very least scaled way back. This is another smart cut, as it keeps the story focused on Levon’s mission. If A Working Man stays true to the novel, then Levon will be dropping Merry off at the home of his blind mentor Gunny Leffertz, played by David Harbour. In addition to impacting wisdom, Gunny also has large cache of weapons that Levon gets to play with.

Cutting Levon’s Daughter From A Working Man Avoids Comparisons With Another Stallone/Statham Movie

Stallone previously wrote Homefront for Jason Statham

One possible explanation for Merry essentially being cut from A Working Man could be to avoid comparison with another Jason Statham action vehicle scripted by Sylvester Stallone. Homefront was also based on a novel series by Chuck Logan, and involved Statham’s Booker and his young daughter being menaced by drug dealers in Louisiana. Like Levon, Statham’s Homefront character is running from his dark past while trying to be a good father – until he’s forced to fall back into his old ways.

Stallone briefly considered Homefront as a potential Rambo sequel during the 2000s, but couldn’t get past the idea of his character having a daughter. He later dusted off the script and gave it to his Expendables co-star with the 2013 action thriller becoming a modest hit. It would have been odd for another Statham/Stallone book adaptation (which came from another author called Chuck) to have the same basic setup, so A Working Man likely dropped Merry’s custody story for that reason.