[3] After making a string of high-profile commercials and shorts, and multiple failed attempts to option a script for an action/western film, he decided to direct it himself under a short schedule and low budget, in what would eventually become the 2010 film Red Hill starring Ryan Kwanten, Steve Bisley and Tom E.
[2] Hughes' various commercials and previous 2008 short film Signs[4] caught the attention of Hollywood star Sylvester Stallone, who was looking for 'new blood' to direct the third installment of the lucrative The Expendables franchise.
Hughes was announced as the director of the remake of the 2011 Indonesian action film The Raid: Redemption with Taylor Kitsch to star,[6] but by October 2015 once both Kitsch and Screen Gems had dropped out of the project Hughes also dropped out as director.
Hughes next directed the 2017 action comedy film The Hitman's Bodyguard, starring Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson, Gary Oldman, and Salma Hayek, which earned $180.6 million worldwide against a production budget between $30–69 million.
A sequel, Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, also directed by Hughes with Reynolds, Jackson, and Hayek returning in addition to Antonio Banderas and Morgan Freeman, was released on June 16, 2021,[7] after being delayed previously to August 20, 2021 from an original release date of August 28, 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.