cannes 2016
WHEELMAN: Netflix Acquires Worldwide Rights To Jeremy Rush’s New Frank Grillo Action Headliner
The wheelman is Grillo – a getaway driver thrust into a high stakes race-to-survive after a bank robbery goes terribly wrong. With a car full of money and his family on the line, the clock is ticking to figure out who double-crossed him, and the only person he can trust… his fourteen-year-old daughter. All reasons to think fast, and drive faster.
'El Mariachi' Star Leads UK Action Horror REDCON-1
It’s been a while since actor Carlos Gallardo prolifically broke out in Robert Rodriguez’s 1992 Mexican spaghetti classic, El Mariachi. Nowadays, and long since starring in several Rodriguez helmers on top of others, you’ll likely find his name popping up a bit more with news now confirming his starring and producing role next to producer Kevin Eastman of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fame for the new sci-fi action horror, Redcon-1.
The folks at Epic Pictures have been shopping the film at Cannes marking helmer Chee Keong Cheong’s third turn at the director’s chair since the 2007 martial arts brawler, Underground and Bodyguard: A New Beginning in 2009. The project has been brewing for a few years now up to recent weeks in which filming set course in the U.K., with a story revolving around an octet of Special Forces on a suicide mission to rescue a scientist following a deadly viral outbreak.
Gallardo is joining Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist and Strike Back series co-star Koieyama Akira, actress and co-star of upcoming martial arts thriller, Karate Kill, former WWE/TNA wrestler Katarina Leigh Waters and Martyn Ford, bodybuilder and starring villain opposite Scott Adkins in upcoming martial arts thriller, Boyka: Undisputed. Rounding out the cast are actor Cheong cohort, actor and co-producer Mark Strange, and actors Oris Erhuero, Joshua Dickinson and Michael Sheehan.
H/T: Deadline
Action Thriller VILLA CAPRI Sets Ron Shelton To Direct, Freeman And Jones To Star
White Men Can’t Jump and Raging Bull helmer Ron Shelton is making a comeback as of this week with the new action comedy, Villa Capri. Sierra/Affinity is taking the film to Cannes this week with Morgan Freeman and Tommy Lee Jones set to star.
The film is a return to the chair for Shelton following his his last two misfires, boxing road comedy Play It To The Bone in 1999 and Hollywood Homicide. This Summer will see him rolling cameras in New Mexico with his own script, in the vein of the 1988 comedy, Midnight Run, centering on a former FBI agent and former mob boss who are forced to cast their petty differences aside in order to fend off a mob hit.
THR reports eOne has already snagged rights to territories in Europe and Australia/New Zealand and will finance the film with Endurance Media, whose own Steve Richards will produce with Bill Gerber.
Freeman can next be expected to appear in Temur Bekmambetov’s Ben Hur this August with Jack Huston while Jones makes an earlier move for July with Matt Damon in Paul Greengrass’s Jason Bourne.
Simon West’s WAR WOLF Howls For Production This November
“The popularity of the fantasy genre around the globe continues to grow and the fierce world of ‘War Wolf’ is an electric story,” said Fortitude’s Nadine de Barros. “Under the masterful direction of Simon West and the brilliant team of Dave and Lou Elsey behind the special effects makeup, this film is going to blow people away with both the look of this fantastical world and the intense storytelling.”
THE INNER CIRCLE: A Word With HUNT FOR HIROSHI Director Sam Gosper
And at the center of all this is Team 9 Lives who I’ve recently discovered for myself online following its lengthy history on YouTube where they’ve grown and flourished little by little in shortfilm, stage performance and stuntwork. They’re a team dedicated to their craft and that’s one of the most important things anyone could ask for when venturing into a project as ambitious as Circle Of Ninja, and with none other than Gosper at the helm, and I managed to have an email conversation in the last several weeks in order to gain further insight on his efforts, the shortfilm and its current trajectory.