Jesse V. Johnson is taking the mantle for The Exchange’s latest world sales acquistion, White Elephant, casting Bruce Willis (Cosmic Sin), Olga Kurylenko (The Courier) and Michael Rooker (Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy) according to Scott Roxborough’s exclusive via The Hollywood Reporter on Thursday. Production is already underway in Georgia from a script Johnson wrote with Erik Martinez, with Corey Large of 308 Productions producing, and BondIt Media fully financing, and sales slated for next week’s virtual market at Cannes.
Willis stars as Gabriel Tancredi, an ex-marine-turned-mob enforcer who must battle his conscience and code of honor when he is forced to help clean up a botched assassination job by his protégé, Carl (Rooker).
Scott Roxborough, THR
The report notes the film’s fifth Willis-led collaborative effort between Large, BondIt Media Capital, and The Exchange – the latest being Chuck Russell’s Paradise City which broke news last week. That film (fifteen years in the making according to Deadline) is also shooting in Hawaii and has Willis reuniting with Pulp Fiction cohort John Travolta, and actress Praya Lundburg starring from a script by Large and writing partner Ed John Drake.
White Elephant marks a new notch up for Johnson who cut his teeth in the stunt industry for close to thirty years, ultimately segueing toward directing a variety of direct-to-DVD thrillers such as Steven Austin/Dolph Lundgren headliner The Package and Ross McCall starrer The Beautiful Ones. He eventually partnered with action star Scott Adkins who had a small role in the 2005 Dominique Vandenberg actioner, Pit Fighter, producing a string of martial arts action thrillers including Savage Dog, The Debt Collector, The Debt Collectors, Accident Man, Triple Threat, and celebrated retribution thriller, Avengenent.
Lead photo of Bruce Willis by Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons