Boss Level and Copshop helmer Joe Carnahan will be back to direct another action thriller with Shadow Force for Lionsgate. First announced in 2019, actress Kerry Washington will now be joined by Lupin series star Omar Sy, who replaces actor Sterling K. Brown, as Deadline‘s Andreas Wiseman reported on Friday.
Nathan Kahane, President, Lionsgate Motion Picture Group, said: “Omar is at the top of his powers – combined with his global stardom, he’s ideally suited to co-lead this action-drama with Kerry, whose talent as an actress and a producer is unbounded. We’re thrilled to be working with the production team of Stephen, Kerry, Sterling, and Pilar, who have shepherded this story of a family in peril from the beginning, and with Joe, who will bring a unique, visceral style to the film.”
Andreas Wiseman, Deadline
Directing from a script Carnahan wrote with Leon Chills, Shadow Force “will follow an estranged couple with a bounty on their heads who must go on the run with their son to avoid their former employer, a shadow ops unit that has been sent to kill them.” Made With Love Media’s Stephen “Dr.” Love will produce with Simpson Street’s Washington and partner Pilar Savone, and with Indian Meadows Productions’s Brown.
Carnahan’s hire comes two years following the attachment of Victoria Mahoney on what would have been her feature debut after making history as the first female and person of color to direct a Star Wars movie, serving on second unit for Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker. Carnahan is also producing the upcoming horror thriller, Felix, from director John Kissack and starring Benjamin Evan Ainsworth and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
Kathy Atkinson is exec producing Shadow Force alongside Indian Meadows’ Danielle Reardon and Jennifer Wiley-Stockton.
Sy, who signed a multi-year feature film deal with Netflix last year, will appear in Louis Leterrier’s new action thriller, The Takedown, which streams on May 6.