Sicario: Day Of The Soldado helmer Stefano Sollima will be in Canada as of next Winter to shoot Western coming-of-age drama, Colt. The film, announced back in May and originally intended as a TV series, stems from a concept inspired by the six-shooter Clint Eastwood carries in Sergio Leone’s classic western, A Fistful Of Dollars.
Colt is the story of three teenagers suddenly thrown into the adult world.
They know nothing of life, have always lived with their parents in a poor mining town, but soon find themselves alone and with a gun in their hands.
Through a story driven by six shots, which will represent six episodes, they will become adults in a sort of Wild West where the law and crime are on the same level.
The first shot forces them to run away from home.
The second shot makes them feel free for the first time in their lives.
The third shot forces them to break the law.
The fourth shot puts them against each other.
The fifth shot condemn of one of the three.
The sixth shot turns them into outlaws.
Variety‘s Nick Vivarelli reports that Sollima will direct Colt from a script by American author and screenwriter Dennis Lehane, one that Sollima reportedly intends to essentially “take the [Spaghetti] Western genre back home” to Italy, per the director’s own statements in May.
Vivarelli took to Sollima’s own statements on the film’s direction and vision:
“…Sollima says that while the concept was developed by Italians, ‘obviously, if you want to shoot the film in English, the next step was to find a great American writer who can make the characters talk and live in a reality that is clearly different from our own.'”
On Lehane, he adds:
“Having him on board is the best I could hope for,” Sollima said, adding that he’s a “huge fan” of everything Lehane has written, from the novels “Mystic River” and “Shutter Island” to his work on “The Wire,” which Sollima called a “seminal” TV show. Lehane more recently worked on skein “Mr. Mercedes.”
Adding to the muscular aesthetic is Leone Film Group, whose Raffaella and Andrea, sons of the late director, are producing the film with further backing by Italy’s RAI Cinema, while production seeks U.S. partners to carry the project forward.
Sollima’s own father, the late Sergio Sollima, has directed notable Westerns like The Big Gundown (1966), Face to Face (1967) and Run, Man, Run! (1968).
Sollima took up his father’s craft in 2012 prior to succeeding Denis Villeneuve’s 2015 hit, Sicario, with Sicario: Day of the Soldado, returning characters previously played by Josh Brolin and Benecio Del Toro; Villeneuve’s film competed for the Palme d’Or at Cannes LXVIII, whicg eventually went to Jacques Audiard for crime thriller, Dheepan.
The news comes as Sollima will be on hand this week for the 76th Venezia premiere of crime series drama, ZeroZeroZero.