basil iwaynk

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AFM 2018: Dev Patel To Debut Direct His Next Starring Actioner, MONKEY MAN

Well this sounds exciting. Actor Dev Patel may have fallen short of his action star posterity with a certain live-action adaptation of a Nickleodeon IP, but that hasn’t hindered his favor since breaking through nearly a decade ago with Slumdog Millionaire. Nor does that change the fact that he’s a first-dan black belt in TaeKwonDo and if he’s been keeping up the craft, that ought to make him an action star contender in his own right. Indeed, the star of Neill Blomkamp’s Chappie and Garth Davis’ 2016 drama, Lion, is pivoting toward directing with his own debut, Monkey Man. Trade news has all but confirmed that Patel will both direct and star in the project for which Endeavor Content will be on hand at the American Film Market through next week to rep worldwide sales on and present to buyers. As Brian Welk of The Wrap notes, Patel developed the […]

BRUISED: Halle Berry To Replace Previous Star And Director For The New MMA Drama

Lee B. Golden III

Oscar-winning actrees Halle Berry (Monster’s Ball, Kidnap) is making 2019 her banner year with the March production of MMA drama, Bruised. Berry will star as well as make her directorial debut according to an exclusive by Amanda N’Duka at Deadline on Tuesday. Michelle Rosenfarb penned the script which will see Berry play the role of Jackie “Justice”, a disgraced former MMA fighter who must now conquer her demons to face one of the sport’s fiercest rising stars if she is to win back Manny, the son she walked out on when he was six. The news comes a little over a year and change when actress Blake Lively was tapped to star for director Nick Cassavetes months prior to the production of Reed Morano’s action thriller, The Rhythm Section. Lively reportedly injured her hand in December of last year, with production resuming this past summer. That film arrives on February […]

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John Wick Spin-Off Series, THE CONTINENTAL, Lands At Starz; Keanu Reeves To Executive Produce

Lee B. Golden III

Lionsgate We’ve long known since last summer that a television spin-off series set in the John Wick universe was in the making. Pan over now to this week’s events over at the Television Critics Association where news is just making headway for the series, The Continental, with word that the show has landed at Starz with actor Keanu Reeves attached. Serving as showrunner will be Chris Collins (Sons of Anarchy, The Wire, Man in the High Castle) who will also pen the script outlining the show’s forte exploring the auspices of the titular assassins’ luxury hotel chain as seen in 2014’s John Wick and last year’s John Wick: Chapter Two. Thunder Road’s Basil Iwaynk is executive producing along with franchise scribe Derek Kolstad, who has been building up his workload ever since then in addition to his latest start on STXfilms’s Nobody with 87Eleven. Chad Stahelski and David Leitch who […]

KILL OR BE KILLED: ‘John Wick’ Team To Tackle Image Comics Adaptation

Lee B. Golden III

Stunt veteran and second unit director-turned filmmaker Chad Stahelski has his plate full going into 2018. With John Wick: Chapter Three currently in pre-production and a reboot of sword-swinging immortal saga, Highlander, still cooking under the pen, Stahelski is reportedly attached to another project as of this week with word from The Hollywood Reporter on Ed Brubaker’s Sean Phillips-inked 2017 Image Comics publication, Kill Or Be Killed. The project tells of a depressed college student who attempts suicide. He survives due to unlikely events but is soon visited by a demon who explains that he was the one who spared the student’s life. But there’s a price to be paid: Going forward, the young man will be allowed to live one month for every person he kills. Stahelski is reteaming with John Wick franchise producer Basil Iwanyk who will produce Kill Or Be Killed with Erica Lee at Thunder Road along […]

Lionsgate To Expand ‘John Wick’ Universe With BALLERINA

Lee B. Golden III

If you think Lionsgate is done blowing your collective minds into the stratosphere and beyond with all things John Wick, you couldn’t be more wrong. Point in fact, with a comic book and a television series spin-off brewing, it turns out that the studio is ready to make the world of the titular assasin a whole lot bigger. The word now is Ballerina – such is the title of the script acquired by Lionsgate in a bidding war against other studios last week. The project is described as a tonal nod to Luc Besson’s 1990s action movie fervor with La Femme Nikita, but with a more pulpy, hyper-stylized treatment akin to the work of Quentin Tarantino or Matthew Vaughn. Story details haven’t been made public, save for the plot generally centered on a young woman raised as an assassin and subsequently sets out to murder her family’s equally trained killers. […]

SMOKE ON THE WATER Action Franchise In Development At Thunder Road

Lee B. Golden III

In a market largely saturated by superhero movies, you can never have too many original action film properties, and producer Basil Iwaynk has been responsible for a number of them coming from under his production banner at Thunder Road. Titles like The Town, John Wick and Sicario come to mind and with much acclaim, and so when you hear news of a new a project underway from these folks, it’s nice to know not to have to be too skeptical. As such, word has it exclusively from The Tracking Board that the company is preparing to launch the new action thriller franchise, Smoke On The Water. Ilwaynk, along with producer Kent Kubena picked up the script from I Still Know What You Did Last Summer scribe Trey Callaway and Ever After and Anna And The King writer Rick Parks, with a plot concept that pits the U.S. Coast Guard against an open water […]

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Live-Action SPLINTER CELL Moves Forward With A Producer On Board

Lee B. Golden III

With all the video game news and online chatter coming out of the happenings of today’s Ubisoft E3 Press Conference, it would make sense to share today’s latest headline regarding the Splinter Cell feature-length film. According to Deadline, Hollywood producer Basil Iwaynk is officially on board to produce the live action film with New Regency and Ubisoft Motion Pictures, the latter who is also currently pushing forward the live-action Assassin’s Creed movie with actor Michael Fassbender for a May 22, 2015 release. Today’s news comes a little over six months after a press release was unveiled in December 2012 stating that actor Tom Hardy was tapped for the lead in the film, with a screenplay to be provided by writer Eric Warren Singer. Hardy is also attached to star in the upcoming Spy Hunter movie directed by Zombieland helmer Ruben Fleischer. Splinter Cell is based on the highly claimed Ubisoft video […]