Den Of Geek‘s Friday report on The Raid franchise director Gareth Evans details hints on a new action thriller which he hopes to begin advancing toward the summer. Evans will be partnering with Ed Telfan along with XYZ Films’s Aram Tertzakian for its current development.
“I started writing it probably about five months ago now. Really since being in lockdown, obviously I’ve been able to give a lot more focus to the writing of it,” says Evans. “It’s an action thriller. It’s a little more mainstream than what I’ve done in the past. It’s set two days before Christmas, so there’s a black dark humor streak to it, as well. It should be quite fun.”
Evans also adds there will be some parallels to the 1988 action classic, Die Hard, which won’t be in a building per se, and cites Shane Black (Iron Man 3, Lethal Weapon) as a point of reference, adding “I just love Shane Black’s work anyway, “His writing’s incredible and his work with characters and that humor is something that I’ve been striving to achieve in this film.”
Evans is currently receiving swathes of praise from fans following the recent Sky Atlantic broadcast of his latest U.K. crime drama, Gangs Of London, which premiered back in April, and could be on par for a second season. Evans and Telfan previously worked together on the show’s fifth episode; The series’ stunt/fight sequences are steered by stunt coordinator Jude Poyer who will also rejoin with the Apostle director on the new project:
“We’ve already designed two thirds of the action for it,” Evans says. “I worked with Jude and his team again. It’s us reuniting and doing our thing. Wild, crazy set-pieces, but then hopefully a story with a lot of heart to it, as well. I’m really excited to get going and hopefully once it all lifts we can start casting the thing. There’ll be more to come on that hopefully in the coming weeks, months,”
News on the mystery project comes five months after XYZ Films’s Todd Brown confirmed Evans’s involvement on Havoc, during a shared panel at the Danish Film Institute back in January. Evans shares a long history with the sales agent and production company dating back to The Raid, which became a global cult smash hit in 2011 after catching the world’s attention with Iko Uwais’s 2009 starrer, Merantau. Status on Havoc remains pending.
Gangs Of London is currently set to air on Cinemax this summer. The show stars Sope Dirisu and Joe Cole, and is a Cinemax co-production with Sky, and is produced by Pulse Films and Sister Pictures.